


First Officer America

by RoseyPoseyPie



Series: Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Artist Steve Rogers, Bisexual Peggy Carter, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: The First Avenger, Catholic Steve Rogers, Chronic Illness, Comic Book Science, Comic Book Violence, Female Steve Rogers, Genderbending, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Sex, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Mental Health Issues, Miscarriage, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Sexual Harassment, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-08-20 07:59:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 44,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16552022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseyPoseyPie/pseuds/RoseyPoseyPie
Summary: Stephanie Grace Barnes (nee Rogers) was not special in any way, shape or form. She was a thin, sickly young woman who struggled with chronic illness. Her outlets were her art and her job as a secretary at Stark Industries in New York City. She married her childhood friend when she was nineteen, and she lived with him in a one-bedroom walk-up in Park Slope, Brooklyn. She was, undoubtedly, nothing. But one selfless act and a government experiment turn Stephanie into First Officer America, the tall, blonde bombshell who leads the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps and dances in a too-short skirt to fund the war effort.The issue is that Stephanie would do absolutely anything for her husband, James Buchanan Barnes, even if that means dropping into a HYDRA base in Italy to rescue him from certain death. And once she proves herself as someone who is actually very special, she might have doomed them both.





	1. Origin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, Everybody!
> 
> This is the fifth installment of my "Anything You Can Do" Series, but you can read it as a stand-alone.
> 
> I have a playlist for Stephanie:
> 
> [Stephanie Barnes's Songs](https://8tracks.com/roseyposeypie/stephanie-barnes-s-songs?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button) from [RoseyPoseyPie](http://8tracks.com/roseyposeypie?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button) on [8tracks Radio](https://8tracks.com?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button).
> 
> Happy reading! :)

When Stephanie Grace Rogers was born on July 4, 1918, her father was already dead. He had been sent to the trenches in Europe and died of mustard gas exposure while trying to get his unit to safety. Joseph Rogers was an American hero, people said, but Sarah Rogers was the reason Stephanie survived infancy. She was born a sickly child, and it was only because Sarah was a nurse who had the maternal love to pilfer supplies from the hospital for her daughter that Stephanie didn’t succumb to that. She would get every infectious disease that went through Brooklyn, and would get so sick she could barely sleep or eat. Sarah Rogers, at one point, exhausted from her daughter screaming from the pain of a sinus infection, put her mouth over her infant daughter’s nose and sucked the mucus right out of her head so she could be rocked to sleep. Sarah Rogers was Stephanie’s hero.

 

Somehow, Stephanie managed to make it to school. She was short, frail, and pale, but she was also a hardworking student, a talented artist and an ardent defender of schoolyard justice. Stephanie often put herself between a bully and a victim, because she knew that she wished someone did whenever a bully turned on her to call her Sick Stephanie or Short Stephanie. Schoolyard bullies weren’t very creative. Stephanie was creative, doodling and sketching on any scrap of paper she could get her hands on. She drew anything in the world around her. People, dogs, cars, houses. Her memory was almost perfect, she could look at a woman pass by the fence of the schoolyard and sketch her perfectly in class when she was supposed to be doing arithmetic. Stephanie’s memory was only good, it seemed, when it came to the visual, like geography and geometry. She was an average student in all other regards.

 

When Stephanie was eight years old, she met Bucky Barnes. In a typical fashion, some very rude boys were trying to steal Stephanie’s drawings to irritate her, as inconsiderate boys do. Stephanie, furious, punched one of them. In retaliation, he knocked her to the ground, dumped her art in the mud, and ran away. An older boy appeared out of nowhere to help Stephanie to her feet and pick her drawings out of the mud. Jaded by the recent events, she grumbled at him that she was fine. “You had them on the ropes,” the boy agreed, before introducing himself as Bucky Barnes. Bucky was a year ahead of her, and lived two blocks away, Stephanie learned. And he was one of the few people who was kind to her out of something other than pity. He didn’t mind the fact that she was pale, frail, and short, or that she was gone at least once a month with some medical complication.

 

As Stephanie got older, her health became more and more stable. She still had severe asthma attacks, occasional pneumonia, a few cases of whooping cough, rheumatic fever twice, heart palpitations and arrhythmia, stomach ulcers, occasional fatigue, chronic pain, and some sort of anemia that meant she had to eat raw liver or liver juice extracts. But other than that, Stephanie was fine. Fine enough that she went to school, took long walks with Bucky in the park so they could talk and she could sketch and listened to the radio with her mother while they washed dishes after dinner. She stood up to bullies, came home with bruises, and got scolded by her mother, but was always proud of a shiner she earned doing something she thought was worthwhile. She went to baseball games and doodled the different trajectories of the ball depending on the pitcher or the batter’s stance and body movement. Bucky bought her a sketchbook with his pocket money after her confirmation, and she bought him a catcher’s mitt for his Bar Mitzvah. She loved that sketchbook. Not only did she draw in it, but she also used its pages to record in a tidy hand her most inner thoughts. She recorded her life both through the images she encountered and the explanations she provided them.

 

They went onto the junior high school, where Bucky became very popular with the girls, but he always seemed to have enough time to go on walks in the park with Stephanie. Stephanie found herself slightly jealous of every Betty and Susan that Bucky dated, even though she knew that none of them were ever going to last like she was. She wasn’t sure why she was jealous, Bucky would abandon his latest belle in an instant if she wanted him too. But seeing him with another girl made her feel sicker than scarlet fever.

 

Things were getting rough economically when they were in junior high school. The Barnes family was doing alright, they had a car, after all, and a general store. Stephanie’s mom’s job was also pretty stable, even though Sarah Rogers was getting older, and catching a cold more often than she used to. Next was high school. Bucky was a star student, an athlete, and the object of many girls' affections. Nobody understood why he wasted his time with short, sick, sad Stephanie, but he did. He even danced with her at the upperclassmen banquet they both attended, even though far prettier girls were practically lining up to do just that. They graduated high school, Bucky first, and then Stephanie. Bucky worked at his family's store, and Stephanie decided to attend a secretarial training program, where she learned how to write in shorthand, organize and file documents, do basic computations, have proper etiquette, and use a typewriter. It wasn’t a physically taxing job, but a few months into her training, Stephanie was blindsided by her mother’s death.

 

Sarah Rogers, after years of working as a nurse in a ward, contracted tuberculosis and quickly succumbed to it. Stephanie was eighteen when she had to bury her mother in mid-October.

 

“My folks wanted to give you a ride to the cemetery,” Bucky said. He had followed Stephanie home. At that moment, she resented Bucky’s clean dark, suit, his parents’ nice apartment, their car, their store. She resented her father for dying in a trench, so her mom had to work extra shifts in a TB ward and die. She resented the crinkled gray dress she was wearing, which was her darkest dress and her Sunday best. She was mad at herself for having so many health issues, as she was sure the stress of her existence exacerbated her mother’s condition. She was angry at the world and longing a very long hug.

 

“I kinda wanted to be alone,” She said, heading up the stairs to her mother’s home. Her home. She still had a few months left of her secretary training, how on earth was she going to pay rent in the meantime?

 

“How was it?” Bucky asked sympathetically.

 

“It was okay,” Stephanie said. “She’s next to Dad.” It felt so strange to be burying her mother, a woman she knew and had adored, next to her father, a complete stranger. Her mother had told her stories, sure, but she never really understood the man.

 

“Do you have a plan?” Bucky asked.

 

“For what?”

 

“Where to live? Ma said you can live with us, I don’t mind sleeping on the couch-”

 

“I’ll be fine, Buck,”

 

“Well, why don’t I stay with you? We can make a fort out of the cushions like when we were kids-”

 

“I’m fine, Bucky,” Stephanie said. “I’ll figure it out. I can get by on my own.”

 

“The thing is, you don’t have to,” Bucky told her. He stepped closer, and Stephanie’s breath caught in her throat. “I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, pal.” He set his hand reassuringly on her shoulder.

 

Usually, Stephanie would let whatever she was feeling sink deep again into the back corners of her mind, but this time, whether it was the grief of her mother’s death or just how blue Bucky’s eyes were, she couldn’t. She was frustrated that he saw her as a friend. Of course, she was just a friend to him. She was too pale, too frail, too short, too underdeveloped for anybody to see her as anything the way she saw other people. The desire that she felt in passing for a lot of people, but especially for Bucky. She pulled away, closing herself off from him and slamming the key in the lock of the apartment door, fighting tears.

 

“Steph,” Bucky followed her inside, “You can talk to me. Come here, it’s okay.” He stood awkwardly in the entryway of the apartment, arms outstretched, offering a hug. Stephanie looked at him and made a very impulsive decision. She headed toward him, but instead of burying her head in his chest and letting his arms envelop her, which she knew would have felt divine, she reached up, grabbed either side of his face, forced herself onto the tips of her toes, and kissed him with about five years of repressed desire. To her complete and utter surprise, his hands wrapped around her waist, he pulled her up to his chest, and he kissed her back.

 

* * *

 

They got engaged quite quickly after that, and Bucky moved in with Stephanie. With his salary from the store and a shift he did at the docks, he managed to cover the rent while Stephanie finished attending secretarial school. After gaining her certification, Bucky proposed with her grandmother’s engagement ring which had been sitting in her mom’s jewelry box for years. There were a lot of reasons why they shouldn’t get married. Firstly, married women weren’t often allowed jobs so Bucky would have to be the sole source of income, and Stephanie’s secretarial certification would go to waste. Secondly, there was a lot of disapproval in both the Catholic and Jewish communities for an interfaith marriage because of what religion the children would subscribe to.

 

Despite the economic and religious reasons why they shouldn’t get married, the reason why they should was that they were in love, which astounded Stephanie. She never saw herself as desirable, but as an awkward, sickly young woman with a few talents. She remembered overhearing some girls in high school say that she looked like a child, and it would be gross if a boy liked her. Those things sat deep within her. She did have a lanky, androgynous figure. Despite her long hair and thick eyelashes, she could definitely see herself as a child, or a young boy. But she wasn’t any of that to Bucky. She was a woman, a woman he had known since they were children in a schoolyard. They were best friends, nineteen, and in love. So, they decided to get married.

 

Combining Catholicism and Judaism to a wedding ceremony proved especially tricky. The Barnes family managed to find a rabbi who would accept an interfaith marriage. Stephanie’s priest since childhood begrudgingly agreed to also help this odd mix of religions and love. It was a mostly private affair, only the Barnes family and Stephanie’s godmother, a nurse who worked with her mother, attended. Stephanie wore her mother’s sheer, white wedding dress over a light blue slip, and became Stephanie Grace Barnes in the Barnes’ living room. She now had her in-laws, Winifred and George, and her three new sisters, Rebecca, Hannah, and Joanna.

 

She rationalized not getting a job as there seemed to be a general marriage bar because of the state of the economy, but it would clear up soon, and she could start to put her certification to use. Bucky stopped working at his family’s general store because the docks wanted to promote him to a more managerial position after two years of solid part-time workmanship, and that position paid more. Stephanie strangely got accustomed to being a housewife. She wasn’t the best cook and boiled most things, but she loved having the day to sit at the table and sketch whatever took her fancy outside the window. She would take walks through the streets of Brooklyn and sometimes visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art so she could sneak into lectures, both vocational and historical, and sketch some of her favorite pieces. She was involved in charity work for both the Barnes’ congregation and her church. She was only sick sometimes now, besides all the chronic conditions, and life wasn’t always perfect, but it was alright.

 

Her favorite thing to do was when Bucky would take her out, and they would go dancing together. And it wasn’t just slow dancing, either. She watched people on the dance floor, and she loved to see the occasional musical with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, with their swinging movements and rapid footwork. With practice, she and Bucky would often dance for hours until her fatigue set in and she had to sleep until midday. It was one of her greatest joys in life, to go dancing with her husband. He could spin her and toss her around like a ragdoll, and it was clear that ‘Grace’ was her middle name when someone paid attention to her footwork.

 

* * *

 

When Stephanie realized she was pregnant, it was because she had been throwing up unwaveringly for about a month. She and Bucky went to the hospital after all the old remedies didn’t work, and the doctors did a few tests and determined that she was pregnant. They were shocked and excited, but the doctor had a lot of concerns, especially with Stephanie’s health. She was put on bed rest, and no more dancing. She accepted it all in stride because she really wanted to be a mother. She made it to about three months when she woke up with severe pain and a puddle of blood.

 

The second time Stephanie was pregnant, she didn’t even realize until she was having the abdominal pain and sudden bleeding. Nausea had been less at that time, and she always did feel slightly uncomfortable from the ulcers anyway. She debated herself before telling Bucky because she didn’t want him to mourn again, but she also didn’t want to lie to her husband.

 

The third time Stephanie was pregnant was the worst time. The nausea was strong enough this time she went to the hospital, and she followed every recommendation to an annoying degree. She made it past the first trimester and saw it as a victory, and a confirmation that the third time's the charm. She made it all the way to the fifth month before she experienced terrible, cramping pain, but she knew the baby wasn’t due for another four months. She started bleeding so much she collapsed, and when she woke up in the hospital, there was the talk of hemorrhaging or some sort of rupture, but the bottom line was that if Stephanie ever got pregnant again, she wouldn’t survive. It was awful to know that making a family would kill her. Then, they had been married for about three years.

 

“Don’t you want to leave?” Stephanie asked Bucky as he brought her food. She was on bedrest, recovering after she was allowed to leave the hospital.

 

“Why would I leave?” Bucky asked.

 

Stephanie sighed. “I’m always sick. We spend so much money on hospital trips that we still live in Mom’s old apartment. And I can’t do the things that Betty Smith or Susan Holcomb can do, like make a family.”

 

“I have a family, I married you for you,” Bucky said. “I’ve known you for years, Steph, I know what I signed up for. I don’t care if we have to live under a bridge, I’m with you ‘till the end of the line.”

 

“I want a job,” Stephanie said. “I’ll pretend to be unmarried if I have to, I just want to do something other than taking care of an empty home all day.”

 

“Once you’re better,” Bucky agreed.

 

* * *

 

 

The emotional strain of her health problems made both of them find an outlet. For Bucky, he got into boxing at the local YMCA and was actually very good at it. Years of loading at the docks and spinning around a dance floor with Stephanie made him a limber and active welterweight boxer. Stephanie's outlet was her work. She was quickly accepted at Stark Industries, a local science, and technology company that built all sorts of gadgets, inventions, and automobiles. Stephanie Rogers became a secretary, who was tasked with filing papers, typing reports, taking shorthand notes at budget meetings, and bringing coffee. She always wore a white and gray uniform with white gloves and black heels, with her hair tied back and perfectly coiffed. She might have used her maiden name on the applications to get the job, but she was very good at it. One budget meeting led to the director of Stark Industries, the Howard Stark, showing some of the department directors his latest prototypes from his workshop. Stephanie was enraptured by the odd, futuristic gadgets. She would sketch on pieces of paper when she had some free time, and found herself sketching out the strange machines she saw, enjoying the details of the cogs and gears.

 

After about four months at Stark Industries, she was called into her boss’ office. Based on the dour look on his expression, she was not here for a good reason. She worried that somehow they might have found out she used her maiden name and that she was married. She had been so careful, she wore her wedding ring around her neck and under her blouse, after all.

 

“Explain these,” Her boss said, showing some crumpled-up sketches of hers. Drawings of things she had seen in Stark’s workshop, or people from his office.

 

“I like to draw,” Stephanie said.

 

“Are you a spy for Roxxon?” The man asked.

 

“Spy? Me? I just like to draw when I’m bored-”

 

“These drawings are incredibly detailed. How are you getting into the workshop?”

 

“During the meetings - I take notes.”

 

“And you so happen to also sketch our designs while taking notes?”

 

“No, I do the sketches after.”

 

“From memory? Don’t be absurd-”

 

“I’m not lying sir, it’s just a hobby-”

 

“Well, it shouldn’t be,” A voice said from behind her. Stephanie turned around and saw Howard Stark himself. She had seen him before, but only during his presentations, and he never even glanced at her once. “You do these from memory?”

 

“Yes,” Stephanie said. “I’ve always been good at drawing from memory.”

 

“What about these sketches, the lines, and the circles?”

 

“Baseball,” Stephanie said. “I like to predict where the ball goes based on how they swing. But I can’t see details too well from far away, so I break it down to the basics.”

 

Howard Stark laughed, “So, why did you become a secretary?”

 

“I always had a neat hand, sir,” Stephanie said. “And I wanted to make some money.”

 

“Don’t we all,” Howard said. “What’s your name again?”

 

“Stephanie Rogers, sir,” she said.

 

“And you're honest?” Howard asked.

 

Stephanie sighed, “Well, Rogers is my maiden name, sir.”

 

“So you lied to you could get employed despite being married?” Howard asked. Stephanie nodded. “And that’s all you lied about?” Stephanie nodded. “Great. You’ll do. I need you in my office at eight tomorrow.”

 

“Sir?” Stephanie asked.

 

“I need a new lab assistant after I had a bit of a falling out with the last one. Someone who can take notes and sketches of what I’m working on. If your memory is really that good, you’ll be perfect.”

 

“And… you don’t care that I’m married?”

 

“Not at all,” Howard said. “We all need to eat.”

 

* * *

 

“He wants you to be his _what_?” Bucky asked as they ate dinner that night.

 

“Lab assistant,” Stephanie said. “I basically take notes and draw pictures for him, so he knows what he’s doing. He’s giving me a massive raise, too. And he doesn’t care that I’m married.”

 

“What does that mean?” Bucky asked.

 

“It means I don’t have to lie that I’m not madly in love with you,” Stephanie said.

 

Bucky smiled at her, but then frowned, “Isn’t Stark a notorious ladies’ man?”

 

“He knows I’m married,” Stephanie said. “Besides, he dates actresses and models, not skinny secretaries with asthma. He’s not interested, Buck.”

 

“Well, then this genius is a schmuck because you’re the best gal around,” Bucky said.

 

* * *

 

On the first day that Stephanie started, Howard Stark had a pair of glasses for her that he said would help her see better. He was right because everything that was a little blurry when far away was suddenly in crystal clear focus. Stephanie thanked him profusely, but he waved her off and set to work. He had her sketch and take notes on the function of all his latest prototypes, and then he moved onto his workshop where he wanted her to get familiarized with all of his equipment, tools, and parts, so she knew what he was using when he was using it for the notes. Doing all of that took until the end of the day. And thus, it continued. Stephanie would show up to work, sit at a desk in the corner of his workshop and lab, and just draw and annotate what he did all day, switching between different pages to organize the creations. When he was off doing something business related, she would type up her notes and add much more neat and labeled sketches for his official lab documentation. She kept track of his designs, and occasionally offered advice when it seemed he was using the wrong tool or could utilize an alternate design schematic, from the ones she knew he had done before. He would sometimes ask her opinions, and she would answer quite frankly when she thought he was building a weapon that was designed to kill rather than defend. To her surprise, he usually would scrap ideas she found too violent.

 

However, she didn't just discuss work Howard Stark. Sometimes, he asked her questions. The first ones were mostly about where she was from, what her family was like. When she quietly admitted that she couldn’t safely get pregnant, Howard Stark nodded solemnly and then said: “Me neither.” He asked her about her hobbies, she talked for perhaps too long about how much she loved going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to observe and sometimes recreate the pieces. He admitted that he had an art collection but no idea how to curate it, and he wanted her opinions. That was how she got into Stark Mansion for the first time and met his butler, Edwin Jarvis, who had, for the most part, taken care of the art collection and selected the pieces. He was a massive fan of impressionism, even though Howard gravitated toward art deco architecture. Stephanie recommended he look at more art deco and art nouveau pieces, as well as more abstract art forms like Dadaism. He had a Dadaist piece in one of the guest bedrooms that Stephanie found amusing. She was absolutely flabbergasted when, a few days later, the Dadaist piece was delivered to her shabby, Brooklyn apartment. If Howard wasn’t her boss, she might be inclined to say that he was her friend.

 

Bucky was jealous of their professional friendship, which was odd to Stephanie because she could reason in her mind why Bucky liked her, but why would anyone else find her attractive? Pleasant, sure. Charming, perhaps. But attractive? Desirable? Bucky was the rare one individual who actually saw her as a passionate, determined, loyal and beautiful young woman, and not as some sickly, skinny secretary. She did worry that it would put a strain on their relationship, but if anything, it just made him more devoted. As if he had to prove to her that he was better than millionaire Howard Stark, so she wouldn’t run away with the eccentric inventor. She found it amusing, but she did adore her husband’s attention, and especially the nights when he took her dancing and then later reminded her what pleasure was. She was incredibly grateful for the diaphragms from the birth control clinic. If everything stayed the way it was, life might’ve been perfect. But then, the war came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, I hope you all enjoyed.
> 
> The current chapter count is based on the state of my drafts and may be subject to change. If you have any feedback, I would love to hear it! All comments, kudos, bookmarks, and subscribers are sincerely appreciated.
> 
> While you wait for the next chapter, I suggest you read through the rest of my series and get acquainted with the rest of the changes I made to the MCU.


	2. Enlistment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you _so_ much to everyone who has commented, given kudos, bookmarked, subscribed, and read this so far! I hope you're all enjoying this. This chapter and the first chapter were supposed to be together, but they got too long, so I made sure to post this one as soon as I could. 
> 
> I hope you like it! :)

Stephanie was involved in the war long before Pearl Harbor was bombed. She and Bucky were engaged in a community effort, spearheaded by the Jewish community in Brooklyn, to help the Jewish migrants from Europe who were escaping the violent anti-semitism and fascism. She was outraged by the cruelty and dissatisfied with the politicians who actually were turning away migrants fleeing the violence because of the economic strain or the fact that they wanted to remain neutral, even though neutrality in the face of evil was evil itself.

She was furious that it took until Pearl Harbor was bombed in the winter of 1941 for the United States to finally join the war effort. Bucky had been registered to the draft and approved under the Burke-Wadsworth Act of 1940, as many had been expecting the war to come after France fell. He would be told when he was needed. Stephanie wanted to help as well, but the way that she was wrapped up in the war effort was far different from her husband. Days after Pearl Harbor, Stark Industries was visited by an entourage of military officers. Howard and Stephanie were the only two in the meeting with these officers. Stark was the star of the show, while Stephanie was just there to take notes.

“Mr. Stark,” The highest ranking officer there said as he shook Howard’s hand. “I’m Colonel Phillips, I represent the United States Army and its affiliation with the Allies’ Strategic Science Reserve. We’re looking to take on engineers and inventors like yourself to help support the war effort. Joining the SSR would substitute for active service, and you’d be able to develop some of the best weapons to defeat the krauts.”

“Okay,” Howard said. “I’m interested. Let’s talk shop, what exactly does the army and this SSR want from me?”

“May we speak privately?” Phillips asked him, glancing at Stephanie.

“We are speaking privately,” Howard said. “Stephanie Barnes is my trusted assistant and secretary. She’s necessary for the projects I perform.”

“Very well,” Phillips said. Stephanie was feeling quite flattered. She didn’t think she was that important. “We’re going to need weapons development,” Phillips said. “Transportation for multiple terrains, and of course, Project Rebirth.”

“Project Rebirth?”

“A German scientist who recently defected due to his religious tendencies ran a program in Germany to develop genetically advanced soldiers. He’s agreed to help the United States complete his project before the Fuhrer and his science division, HYDRA, can,” Philips explained. “We have an SSR headquarters here in New York City, as well as a base in Newark, New Jersey. If you agree, you and your assistant need to come to our New York headquarters to be enlisted as members of the SSR.”

“When?” Howard asked.

“ASAP,” Phillips replied.

“I’ll get my car,” Howard said. “Steph, in the meantime, can you go to the index and pull all my military-grade designs?”

“Right away, Mr. Stark,” Stephanie said. She exited the meeting room and headed over to the archives. She stuffed an envelope folder with her neat notes of schematics Howard had for tanks, planes, firearms, ammunition, and bombs. He had started designing them after France, knowing that one day the military would show up with fistfuls of cash. Stephanie didn’t care about the money, but she wanted to stop the murder of innocent people in Europe.

 

SSR headquarters were in an office building in the financial district of Manhattan. Stephanie and Howard were split up, he was taken to the director’s office, and she was taken to a conference room. She nervously fidgeted with her glasses as she waited for Howard to return. When the door opened twenty minutes later, it was not Howard who entered, but a young woman, about Stephanie’s age, with an impeccably tailored uniform, perfectly coiffed brown hair, and scarlet lips. She was the most beautiful woman Stephanie had seen in her life. She walked with an elegance and poise Stephanie had never seen before, but the way she squared her shoulders and planted her feet irradiated confidence and power. Her eyes were large and brown, but Stephanie could tell from the way they glimmered that this woman had seen things, that she knew things, that she could  _do_ things.

“Hello,” The woman said in a British accent, sitting down beside Stephanie and handing her a glass of water. “I’m Agent Carter, of the SSR.”

“Stephanie Barnes,” Stephanie introduced herself. “I’m Mr. Stark’s assistant.”

“Yes, he’s been quite adamant we let you work with him on some of the projects he’ll be doing for the SSR. So, tell me, Mrs. Barnes, why do you work for Mr. Stark?”

“Well, at first it was just for the finances,” Stephanie said. “I’m a certified secretary, and I wanted to bring in some income at home. I was also sick of sitting around at home being a balaboosta. I worked for the financial department, and Mr. Stark was impressed by my attention to detail and artistic talents and wanted me to help him in his lab. He’s been very kind to me, I’d like to think we have a professional friendship.”

“And you are married, correct?” Agent Carter asked. Stephanie nodded. “If Mr. Stark asked you, or we asked you, to keep something from your husband, could you?”

“I think if I tell Bucky that I’m working on a project with Mr. Stark that’s secret and for the government, he’d stop asking questions,” Stephanie said. “He understands that sometimes my job is a bit demanding.”

“And he wouldn’t feel... emasculated, let’s say if you were working at a clearance level in the government that demanded intense scrutiny?”

“No,” Stephanie said.

“Now,” Peggy said. “Is there anything the SSR should know about you before bringing you into the fold?”

“I have chronic health problems,” Stephanie said. “Asthma, poor eyesight, heart arrhythmia, I’m bad in one ear, I’ve gotten scarlet fever a few times, stomach ulcers…” Stephanie trailed off when Agent Carter’s drawn expression became sympathetic. “I’m fine. I’m in and out of the hospital sometimes for chronic issues, but I haven’t had any unexpected acute issues since-” the miscarriage “-I started working for Mr. Stark.”

“But they don’t keep you from doing work?” Agent Carter asked.

“I’d tell Mr. Stark if they would,” Stephanie said.

“Alright,” Agent Carter said. “And, if someone approached you with money, let’s say, or a cure for one of these illnesses, in turn for becoming a spy against the United States government, would you imagine accepting that?”

“No,” Stephanie said. “My work with Mr. Stark is far more important than I am. God, that sounds dark. What I mean is - I do charity work for the refugees from Europe. My dad died in the Great War. I know what’s at stake, I would never put myself first when I’m helping counter someone like Adolf Hitler.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Barnes,” Agent Carter said, standing up to shake her hand.

“Call me Stephanie, please,” Stephanie said as she shook. “Mrs. Barnes is my mother-in-law.”

“Then, I suppose you can call me Peggy,” Agent Carter said. “I’ll be working with you and Mr. Stark on Project Rebirth.”

* * *

As Stephanie expected, Bucky accepted the fact that she was going to be helping the government but couldn’t talk about the work that they’d be doing. He just hoped that she wouldn’t be spending too much time away from home. She hoped that also, Howard had promised her that this SSR work shouldn’t take much more time than the work that they did together, and that she could get home with enough time to have dinner with her husband and listen to the radio.

The place she and Howard would be working for Project Rebirth was beneath an antiques and furniture store in Brooklyn, not far from where Stephanie lived. Beneath this store, in the ample, empty, cavernous space, was where they would have to build the lab. Howard introduced Stephanie to the fourth person on the project, Dr. Abraham Erskine. A German scientist who was caught smuggling his Jewish family out of Germany. They managed to make it to England, which is how the SSR learned of his location. Agent Carter rescued him from Germany herself. Because of this, he requested she worked with him on Project Rebirth. Project Rebirth was something that Howard was excited for, and Stephanie was a little concerned about. It was a project to enhance humans into super soldiers. Stronger, faster, and in better health than the average man on the battlefield. Erskine admitted he began synthesizing the serum as a cure for certain types of illness, but the Nazis’ science division, Hydra, took his serum and started utilizing it. There were unexpected effects, which meant that Erskine and Howard were recruited to work out the kinks before the Germans could. 

The first step was designing the lab. Stephanie was tasked with doing sketches while listening to Erskine and Howard debate back and forth how the layout should look and what equipment they would need. After a week of planning, the construction of the lab. As the Project was Rebirth, Stephanie lovingly nicknamed the lab “Utero” in her sketches, and the name stuck throughout development. When Utero was finished, they still had the most critical part left to develop, the radiation chamber. Erskine needed to use high-energy Vita-Rays to stimulate the serum inside a patient, if they weren’t bonded correctly, they tended to have adverse physiological effects. They needed a delivery system and a way to keep the radiation contained. The issue was that there was no way to create a capable system that could irradiate an entire body effectively. If the organic material were bombarded with too many Vita-Rays, it would form a substance that Howard called nitramene, which was an effective explosive more than anything.

“I’m not going to be able to figure this out,” Howard said. They were pulling a late night, which was, unfortunately, becoming more common for Stephanie with Project Rebirth, much to Bucky’s chagrin. “I think I’m going to die a failure. Might as well die sooner rather than later,” Howard said morosely.

“There’s some rat poison upstairs,” Stephanie said as she worked on converting the day's notes into neat, typed-up reports for the filing systems.

“No, too painful. I just want Agent Carter to shoot me between the eyes,” Howard said.

Peggy looked up from the book she was reading. She was their SSR supervisor and bodyguard more than anything. She shook her head and sighed, “Americans.”

“Well, Mr. Stark, you always say you need a different perspective.”

“I have tried many perspectives,” Howard said. “This chamber needs some sort of way to contain the radiation, and I need to get enough radiation to have equal distribution. I did the math, and that means I would need one point distributing radiation per square inch. It’s not feasible with our current chamber design, and if I made the chamber smaller, I wouldn’t have enough room to fit the beam sources.” The current design was two walls covered in beam sources, and the person would be standing between them.

“What if you steamed them like with a pressure cooker?” Stephanie asked. “I remember seeing that fancy tchotchke back at the World’s Fair.”

“That’s stupid!” Howard declared. He was silent for a long time. Then he fell off his chair and sprung up “Unless it isn’t!” He knocked everything off of his workspace.

“You’re cleaning that,” Peggy said to Howard.

“If we insulated a narrow chamber with a high-density material,” Howard said, drawing an oblong shape, “And reduced the number of vita-ray beams, then the unused rays would reflect off of the internal lining and continue to permeate the organic material.”

“How dense?” Stephanie asked.

"Lead will do, and then, the steel coating.” He worked on his sketching. “The vita rays will be contained and will continue to bounce around the contained capsule, meaning I can probably decrease it to one beam every square foot because of the high-energy of the vita rays - I need to check the math, but a pressure cooker could do it.”

 

 

 Peggy gave Stephanie a ride back to her apartment. By the time she arrived back home, it was nearly two in the morning, but Howard had almost completed his plan for the radiation chamber. He told her she could have the rest of the week off, he had some business to be doing for his upcoming expo, and he didn’t want for her to get too exhausted. At least the late spring weather was pleasant enough that she didn’t freeze as she unlocked the door to the apartment and headed inside. She slipped her shoes off immediately so she could delicately walk through the house, careful not to disturb Bucky. However, as soon as the door squealed shut, the pile of blankets on the couch moved, and Bucky stood up. Clearly, he fell asleep waiting for her to come home.

“Sorry.”

“It’s - what - two? Why were you gone for so long?”

“We had a breakthrough, and I needed to finalize some sketches. I’m sorry, Buck, but at least I have the rest of the week off while Stark’s out on business.”

“I was worried sick.”

“I’m sorry,” Stephanie said. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Fine now,” Bucky said, heading over toward her. He scooped her up into his arms, bridal style. She squeaked in surprise. “Shush,” He whispered to her before kissing her. She immediately reciprocated his passionate kiss, threading her fingers through his hair as he carried her back to the bedroom.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Bucky called in sick, so he could spend the day in bed with Stephanie. After a few hours of Stephanie sketching her husband in the black sketchbook she kept in her nightstand, she decided to go into the kitchen to fix herself some tea. As she waited for the water to boil, she was confused to see an official-looking letter sitting on the kitchen table. With her curiosity piqued, she lifted the open letter and skimmed it. An unpleasant feeling settled in the pit of her stomach as she realized what the message was.

“Steph, you gonna get that?” Her husband’s voice carried as he came closer. “The kettle’s whistling-” He stopped when he saw what she was holding. He looked panicked. “I was going to tell you-”

“I know you were,” Stephanie said.

“It’s just, I wanted it to be right-”

“I understand, Buck,” she said. “I’m not mad. I’m just…” She sighed as she got to work on pouring herself a cup of scalding water and adding a tea bag to it. “I thought I was going to be ready.”

“So was I,” Bucky admitted, sitting down.

“So you’re shipping out in September?” Stephanie asked.

“For training, it’s nearly three months,” Bucky said. “At Camp McCoy in Wisconsin.”

“And then?” Stephanie asked.

“I could ship off. I could be asked to complete additional training if they want me to specialize in something. I’ll know more, later,” Bucky said.

“So, we have the summer?” Stephanie asked.

“I’m coming back,” Bucky said. “Before I’d go to a theater. We’d probably have a few days.”

“Right,” Stephanie said. “The summer, and a few days, God knows when.”

“It’s not like I’m not coming back, Steph.”

“You might not,” Stephanie said. She sighed, “I can’t pretend it’s not like I knew what you were signing up for. And, hell, I’d have signed up too. If I weren’t already working with Stark, I’d have chopped my hair off and called myself Steve to go and fight.”

“You’d have been disqualified on asthma alone,” Bucky said.

“Probably,” Stephanie agreed.

“Are you going to be alright?” Bucky asked.

“I’m not made of glass, Buck,” Stephanie said. She closed the letter and set it down. “Let’s forget about that for a while, just enjoy our day together.”

Bucky smiled at her, it was a lopsided, playful smile. But she could see the sadness in his eyes. She could feel it on her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Please, if you can, comment! I adore hearing from all of you! Your kudos, bookmarks, and subscriptions are also noticed and appreciated!
> 
> Until the next chapter...


	3. Training

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to everyone who has been reading this so far. Your comments, kudos, bookmarks, and subscriptions are noted and appreciated. I'm very excited to have the next chapter ready for you, especially now that the plot is chugging ahead.
> 
> I hope you enjoy! :)

To get the right amount of lead to line the entire chamber took weeks. Howard was also off on a surprisingly large number of business trips, meaning that if Stephanie even went into work, all she had to do was revise some notes, file some paperwork, and twiddle her thumbs. She would occasionally be summoned by the SSR to do some lab work in Utero. Either they had questions about Howard’s specifications, or they wanted her to redesign or explain the specs he gave them. Other times, she was asked to look at the production of some of Howard’s creations if they were struggling with function and explain how these prototypes differed from his design and how to fix it. She was even more surprised when she found out from Peggy that this was precisely what Stark had asked the SSR to do when he was unavailable.

“You are good at this engineering work,” Peggy told her after bringing her back to Brooklyn from the SSR headquarters in Manhattan. Peggy wasn’t actually driving, it was a cab. But Peggy paid the fare.

 

“I just make his notes, draw his designs, and keep his head on his shoulders,” Stephanie said.

 

“And deflate his ego,” Peggy added.

“Well, somebody has to, he is full of hot air,” Stephanie smiled.

“I heard that your husband was recruited,” Peggy said. “You have my sympathies. I know what it’s like to see someone you love go off to war.”

“Did you have a husband?” Stephanie said. “Sorry, that’s-”

“No, it’s fine,” Peggy shook her head. “I was engaged. And then I lost my brother, Michael. I had been a codebreaker before, in England. I was offered a job with the SSR, but I turned it down for marriage. After his death, I joined the SSR and ended the engagement. I’ve heard my former fiancé has found a suitable replacement.”

“We’re sort of in denial right now,” Stephanie said. “Just… taking advantage of the time, we have left before he, you know, goes to war. At least it’s for a good cause. The fascist regimes in Italy, Germany, and Japan are, well, this time it's more worthy of war than the last one. Although, I wasn’t around for that one.”

“Neither was I,” Peggy said. “I understand. It feels like now, there’s actually evil in the world. Before, it was just a matter of power.”

“You can’t sugar coat it and say there are no alternative reasons why we joined,” Stephanie said. “The economic benefits of war are apparent. And the outcome of the last war really did establish the League of Nations. So, if history is repeating itself, the war now will determine the next round of global powers. But, strip all that away-” Stephanie shrugged. “-I don’t like bullies.”

Peggy nodded. “Well, I believe this is your street. I’ll see you later, Stephanie.”

“See ya, Peggy,” Stephanie smiled before exiting.

 

* * *

 

It seemed that the summer of 1942 was the quickest in Stephanie’s life, even though she was trying to let every moment with her husband last forever. With his father’s battered suitcase, Stephanie and Bucky walked to the train station so he could depart to Wisconsin. Hidden in the folds of Stephanie’s coat was a present she had for him: pictures and drawings she had done for him to take with him. She was one of many young women saying goodbye to the men they loved at that train station. Bucky had done his farewells to his mother, father, and sisters a few days prior. This moment was between him and Stephanie. She handed off the bound journal. “For when you need some good memories,” she said. He accepted it and put it in the inside pocket of his coat. He bent down and kissed her with everything he couldn’t say. When he broke away, Stephanie was fighting tears. “Be safe,” She begged.

“I will,” Bucky promised.

 

* * *

 

Bucky was gone, but Howard was back, and the Osmium chamber was built. Meaning, now was the time to start looking for a candidate.

“We have a special SSR recruitment base in Newark,” Colonel Phillips explained. “These men are specimens already. Wonderful health, perfect candidates. We need you to select one for the initial procedure before we start a cohort.”

“I have particular psychological recommendations as well,” Erskine said. “Perhaps more important than the physical. Have those been met?”

“Doctor, I don’t have time to ask men about how their childhoods were. This is war, war needs soldiers.”

“The serum enhances everything,” Erskine said. “A strong man may become stronger, yes, but an angry man will become angrier. A violent man will become more violent. I do not want for the serum to be used to create monsters, I have escaped monsters.”

“Per our initial agreement, you have the right to select the first candidate at this stage,” Colonel Phillips said tersely.

“Yes, I do,” Erskine nodded. “Howard and I shall travel to this base to select a candidate.”

“I can’t,” Howard said. “I have too many projects. You asked me to build you a radiation chamber, I did that.”

“Well, I need someone with an understanding of the requisites to observe the men in action,” Erskine said. “Both how their bodies and their minds handle stress, as well as their temperaments. I cannot be devoted to this observation stage, I need to develop enough serum for the first stage of doses. Perhaps Agent Carter-”

“I’m the one who’s overseeing the training of those men,” Peggy said. “I can’t train and scrutinize.”

“I can do it,” Stephanie spoke up. “I’ve been working on Rebirth as long as Stark. I’ve typed up every report that Utero sends to the SSR, so I’m well aware of the expectations.”

“She has superb attention to detail,” Erskine said. “I like this idea. I believe Mrs. Barnes will be an excellent substitute for Mr. Stark for this stage. He can work on his other projects, and she will stay devoted to our own of Brooklyn.”

“Fine,” Colonel Phillips said. “Carter, can I trust you to make sure Mrs. Barnes will be safe on that base?”

“Yes,” Peggy nodded.

“Alright, pack a bag, Mrs. Barnes.”

 

* * *

 

 

Peggy and Stephanie would share a room on the officer’s side of the base. There were sixteen possible candidates training, as well as the usual specialist slew of SSR spies and officers. For those sixteen, it was Stephanie’s job to take notes on them. Not just their physical performance, but every time they faltered, every moment of weakness. She was to observe them in their free time. Which ones were dominant personalities or leaders? Which ones were submissive? Who was aggressive? Who was compassionate? These were all observations vital to Erskine making a decision. While most of the men were at first shocked, intimidated, emasculated, or somehow aroused by the fact that Peggy was effectively their commanding officer, Stephanie paid attention to the few who accepted a woman as their superior, as it indicated, in her eyes, that they were open-minded. She evaluated their determination and critical thinking skills as they did an array of challenges. Sometimes, she couldn’t stop herself from thinking of Bucky, who was doing this exact thing several states over. She was glad he wasn’t here, though. She didn’t want her husband to be put in an irradiated pressure cooker.

She couldn’t tell Bucky everything. She wanted to write him a letter that detailed every corner of her life, but she couldn’t. Instead, she wrote out her thoughts on the edges of her sketchbook. Between artistic renderings of various vehicles on the base, the faces of the candidates, and her recollections of what her mother and husband looked like, she would write. She was careful not to disclose names and essential terms in these little notes she wrote out when she needed to express something. She came up with symbols for Howard, Peggy, Phillips, Erskine, Utero, Rebirth, even Bucky. She was sure if an expert like Peggy got ahold of her sketchbook, she could solve the symbolism, but Stephanie felt safe that no soldier would stumble across it and learn her deep secrets.

Stephanie had the strangest feeling as she watched Peggy bark at men to continue to push up against the ground, to run faster while carrying heavy loads, to extend their physical limitations while learning new skills. These strange feelings manifested in several ways. She envied the men who were training as if being yelled at while exercising in mud was a desirable experience. She also was having odd dreams, which she attributed to missing her husband. Often times, these dreams were private moments between her and Bucky. However, sometimes, Peggy was there. And other times, both Bucky and Peggy were there. Not only was Stephanie frustrated emotionally, and feeling guilty for thinking about someone other than Bucky, it was quite annoying to sleep in the same room as the woman who was one subject of your passionate, arousing dreams. Stephanie kept these thoughts under lock and key, and thankfully most anyone would attribute her odd behavior to the fact that she missed Bucky - which she did, more than she could bear, but the situation was far more complex than even she could understand.

The other desire Stephanie had, the one to be trained, the one to actually learn how to fight after years of coming home with black eyes when she flung herself in a situation she shouldn't have, Stephanie succumbed to. “Can you teach me?” Stephanie asked Peggy one night when she was relieved from her observational duties. 

“Teach you what?” Peggy asked.

“How to fight?” Stephanie suggested. “I mean, I know a bit of boxing from watching Buck at the YMCA, but you know how to fight as a girl.”

“It’s not that different,” Peggy said. “It’s all about using what you have.”

Stephanie deflated slightly, “Well, I don’t have much.”

“You have more than you think,” Peggy said. “Besides, anyone can shoot a gun. If you want some training, I think now would be a good time. While the men are working inside, we can take advantage of the equipment available on the base.”

Stephanie was blessed to be taught how to fight from a woman like Peggy Carter. Peggy knew how to take advantage of her size and what was available around her to be an effective assailant, and she taught Stephanie how to fight while being four-foot-ten and ninety pounds. It was all about learning how to put her entire weight behind every movement, and how to target areas of the body that were debilitating when struck. She taught Stephanie how to clean, handle, and even shoot a firearm. She also became slightly more confident. After seeing the men try and fail to climb a pole and grab the flag at the top, Stephanie pulled the pin out of the base out of curiosity and watched the pole fall to the ground, flag in reach. Peggy could barely contain her laughter at the crestfallen expressions of every single candidate as they realized how poorly they failed as they had to run another mile before water.

Stephanie could see the physical values of these candidates that Phillips had selected, but only one was meeting the psychological requirements of Erskine’s specifications, at that was Jason Charles Hills. He was mid-level in the physical performances, but Stephanie could tell he was compassionate and intelligent despite the fact his constitution and leadership qualities were in a concerning zone for the procedure and the resulting responsibilities. However, with an aggregate comparison of all the candidates, he was the one she observed had the best likelihood of not becoming an aggressive and violent monster, as Erskine feared. It seemed that he accepted her recommendation; because after two months of training, it was Hills that Erskine told Phillips he wanted to be used as a subject. Phillips favored the loud, aggressive, dominant men, but he decided on the first test, Hills would do.

The first test run of Project Rebirth, Utero, and the Radiation Pod was with Jason Charles Hills, in early December. Howard tested and retested the radiation delivery system, and the military was finally ready to observe Erskine’s experiment. Hills accepted the penicillin and serum doses with calm fortitude. Once he was placed in the pod, however, the pain from the Vita-Rays was too much for him to handle, and they had to end the procedure after only getting to forty percent efficacy. Despite that, they wanted to observe Hills’ progress. A week of intensive testing proved that initially, his physical abilities were enhanced from the baseline. However, not only did the effects start to wane after a few days, but the side effects manifested as well. Hills eventually succumbed to the physiological strain of the serum and died after falling into a coma.

The military was dissatisfied. Phillips managed to argue to his superiors that it was because Hills was too much of a pansy that they didn’t get the full effect of the project. If the SSR was allowed to try again with a different set of candidates, this time selecting one who could physically and mentally survive the process above all else, then they could see the right outcomes that Erskine promised. His superiors accepted this. Stephanie was not needed for the second cohort of candidates and instead went back to Brooklyn and her empty apartment to work on the finishing touches of Stark’s convention, which launched that February. Around this time, Stephanie also learned that Bucky would spend another month in Wisconsin, being selected for advanced firearms training, as well as possibly being promoted to Sergeant before he even faced a war zone. Stephanie was upset that she wouldn’t see her husband for another month but glad that his time out of the war would be extended. His weekly letters were a staple of her sanity, and she threw herself into her work with Howard to keep herself from the fear she had for the man she loved.

 

* * *

 

 

Every weekend, Howard had to premiere two prototypes at the Stark Expo, meaning that Stephanie had to go through the archives and select a pile of possible things to show the people. From flying cars to advanced communication devices, Stark had a full roster to premiere, and a long list of potential assistants to help him on stage. Stephanie might be the reason Stark managed to do what he did, but she was not part of the Stark Industries image. Beautiful girls with long legs and full bosoms were what Stark liked to have on his arm when he showed the world who he was. He did give her guaranteed free admission to the Expo and any of its presentations whenever she desired, which meant that she definitely had plenty of things to sketch. In early February, Bucky told her that he was going to come to New York on February fourteenth, and be sent off to England on February fifteenth. Stephanie wished she had more time with him, but she was going to enjoy the last night they had together before he was in a war zone.

Stephanie waited at the train station nearly all morning, practically falling apart with all the nervous energy she was building up, waiting to see Bucky again. When he stepped off the train, she had to admit she was quite fond of the way he looked in his olive green, perfectly pressed uniform. When he saw her, he walked over to her with swinging shoulders, grabbed her in the middle of the station, spun her, and dipped her for a kiss. She kissed him back, all of her nervous energy seceding to the joy of being in his arms again.

They spent the early part of the evening at the Expo, as Bucky did want to see where Stephanie’s hard work had been going the past few weeks, and he couldn’t see Utero for national security reasons. They stood in the crowd together to watch Howard premiere his latest invention, the Flying Car. Stephanie was concerned about the power source for this one, but Howard assured her for a few seconds of air, it would be fine. 

Mandy, Howard's onstage assistant, stepped onstage, “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Howard Stark!” She said. Stark stepped onstage with his typical bravado. Women in the stage cried their love for him as he winked at the audience and kissed Mandy full on the mouth.

“Ladies and gentlemen, what if I told you that in just a few short years, your automobile won’t even have to touch the ground at all?” He asked as Mandy pulled the shiny sheet off of the automobile prototype. With a flick of a switch, the car began to hover above the ground.

“Holy cow,” Bucky whispered beside Stephanie.

Then, there was a malfunction in the power source, the automobile sparked, and fell to the ground. “I did say a few years, didn’t I?” Howard joked. The crowd laughed. If there was one thing Howard was the best at, was his charisma.

After the end of Stark’s presentation, Stephanie managed to get backstage with Bucky to introduce Howard to her husband.

“Hey, Stephanie,” Howard greeted her. “You were right about the current lines.”

“What else is new?” Stephanie asked. “I know your designs better than you, remember. Mr. Stark, I’d like to introduce you to my husband, Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.”

“Sir,” Bucky greeted him as they shook hands.

“Your wife is brilliant,” Howard said. “I hope you know that.”

“I do,” Bucky said. “Nice to meet you. Stephanie admires you.”

“Aw, really?” Howard said. “You admire me, Stephanie?”

“I admire you when you give me art pieces that are too expensive for my apartment,” Stephanie replied. “It was great to see you, Stark, but I’m taking my husband dancing.”

“Have fun,” Stark said. “But, I was gonna tell you later, Steph, Phillips wants us back in Brooklyn on Monday afternoon for a second trial.”

“He’s picked a candidate?” Stephanie asked, surprised.

“And he wants the full treatment,” Stark nodded. He noticed Bucky’s confused expression. “Sorry, Sarge-”

“-It’s above my pay grade, I get it,” Bucky nodded. “Loose lips sink ships, I didn’t hear any cryptic message at all.”

“See you tomorrow, boss,” Stephanie said.

 

* * *

 

Dancing with Bucky might have been cut short for the couple to head home and spend their last few hours together with skin pressed to skin, and soft whispering in the dark. Neither of them got any sleep, as Bucky said he would sleep on the plane, and Stephanie wanted to spend every second she could in the presence of him. When dawn had broken, and it was time for him to head off to England, she made sure he wouldn’t forget what she tasted like any time soon, and then tearfully said farewell to the man she loved.

“Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone,” Bucky requested as they embraced in the doorway where they had their first kiss. Where he proposed to her accidentally. Where he carried her over to christen their marriage on that lumpy couch.

“How can I?” Stephanie asked fondly, tracing her fingers along his jawline and his lips. “You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

He laughed weakly and kissed her fingers and the inside of her palm, “You’re a punk.”

“Jerk,” She countered affectionately. “Be careful.” She ordered.

“Always,” He promised. 

"Come back to me," She begged.

He gave her a sad smile, bending down and giving her one last kiss. She let herself get lost in his lips, her back arching so she could push further into his mouth. She wanted the warm heat of his soft lips to linger in her memory forever. She needed to memorize the way her lips buzzed with a thousand nerves sparking against him. The feeling of him against her was all that was keeping her from breaking apart then and there in the doorway where it had all started. She felt him pull away, and her chest burned as she let him straighten and look at her with all the love and sadness she knew was in her heart as well. Bucky headed out the door, and she watched him and his perfectly tailored backside leave indefinitely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that you all liked this chapter!
> 
> As always, I would love to hear from you, and any and all comments would be adored. Your feedback in other forms, like kudos, bookmarks and subscriptions are also noticed and appreciated.
> 
> Thank you, until the next chapter! :)


	4. Rebirth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again so much to everyone who has read, subscribed, bookmarked, given kudos, and especially commented on this! I'm thrilled to interact with all of you and to receive your feedback in whichever form you give it.
> 
> I want to put a little bit of a warning on this chapter, but it doesn't seem there was a tag that accurately captured the way that I address medical ethics in this chapter, which I know might make some people uncomfortable. I guess, my warning is that Project Rebirth happened before the Nuremberg trials and resulting Nuremberg codes, and it's kind of clear here in the way that they handle a patient's informed consent.
> 
> Anyway, thank you all again, and without further ado, the next chapter...

“What’s the name of Phillips’ candidate?” Stephanie asked Howard as they waited for him to arrive.

 

“Gilmore Hodge,” Howard said, “Peggy’s not too fond of him. But he’s passed every test the Colonel gave his cohort.”

 

“Let’s hope he’s tougher than Hills,” Stephanie said morosely. She did take it hard that her recommendation didn’t survive the procedure.

 

Hodge arrived, being escorted by Peggy. He had his picture taken with Erskine, and then the nurses escorted him down to Utero, where he had to lay on the exam table. Stephanie was sitting in the corner of the room, pen and paper ready to record the experiment.

 

“Mr. Stark, levels?” Erskine asked.

 

“Levels are at full percent,” Howard said.

 

“Good,” Erskine said. He turned on his microphone, “Ladies and gentlemen, today we take not another step towards annihilation, but the first step on the path to peace. We begin with a series of microinjections into the subjects major muscle groups. The serum infusion will cause immediate cellular change. And then to stimulate growth, the subject will be saturated with Vita-Rays.”

 

Hodge was completely stoic while he was injected with penicillin and then with the serum infusions. The exam table moved into the pod, which enclosed, and Howard began the administration of the radiation. Whimpering started in the pod at about forty percent, but it was Phillips’ orders to ensure, regardless of pain, that Hodge got the full dose of Vita-Rays. Once they hit one hundred percent, the reactor shut itself down, and the pod split open. Stephanie had to admit that Hodge’s new bulking frame was impressive, if not a little gruesome. Stephanie abandoned her notes to celebrate with Howard and Erskine in the center of Utero. Military officials and senators swarmed Hodge, who was now seven feet tall and bulging at every muscle.

 

The celebrations were interrupted by an explosive blast. When Stephanie looked around for the source of the noise, she saw a man close to the vials lift his gun and train it on Dr. Erskine. Her reaction was immediate; she shoved the scientist out of the way as a loud gunshot reverberated in the room. Hodge roared in a primal way and tackled the shooter, several more shots went off, but Hodge continued to beat the man, fists pounding into his skin and cracking bones.

 

“Stephanie!” Howard exclaimed. Stephanie didn’t feel any pain. Maybe she was fine.

 

“I think he missed,” she said, but the look of concern on Howard’s face told her otherwise. She looked down to her abdomen, where a circle of scarlet was spreading, and a hole sat perfectly above her navel. With the realization that a bullet had ripped through her torso, Stephanie suddenly felt very faint.

 

“We need to get her to a hospital!” Howard yelled. Someone was pressing on her, and she felt like she was being suffocated in a hazy fog of white.

 

* * *

 

When Stephanie blinked awake, she was surprised to see Peggy Carter standing in the corner of her room.

 

“Peggy?” She asked.

 

“You’re awake,” Peggy said.

 

“What happened?” Stephanie asked.

 

“A HYDRA spy, Heinz Kruger, managed to sneak into the observation room. He set off a bomb and attempted to steal a vial of serum,” Peggy explained. “When you saved Erskine, Hodge attacked Kruger. Hodge was shot multiple times, and he broke nearly every bone in Kruger’s body. Neither of them survived their injuries. The military is shutting down Rebirth.”

 

“And am I going to be okay?” Stephanie asked.

 

“You survived surgery,” Peggy said. “Which was unexpected. But they’ve had to resect your intestines to a dangerous degree, the stitches in your abdominal wall keep splitting, and you’ve developed a severe infection.”

 

“Is that why I feel like I’m on fire?” Stephanie asked.

 

Peggy sighed, “They’re not optimistic you’ll pull through.”

 

“They’re never optimistic,” Stephanie said.

 

“You should write to your husband, just in case,” Peggy said.

 

“It’s funny before he left, he told me not to do anything stupid,” Stephanie said. “He’s in Europe, and I’m the one who got shot by a Nazi here in Brooklyn.”

 

“What you did was very heroic,” Peggy said. “You saved Erskine’s life.”

 

“Good,” Stephanie said. “America needs more of him than they need more of me.”

 

* * *

 

Stephanie didn’t know what to say to Bucky. “Bucky, I’m injured” was too vague, “I was shot defending the country” was too serious, “There’s Nazis in Brooklyn, apparently” was not serious enough. Part of her just wanted him to not know. Because if she had to tell him her life was in danger, then that would absolutely ruin him. He would blame himself for not being there, blame Howard for employing her, blame America for the project, blame Germany for the war. The worst part was that the fever, the pain, and the pain medication all put her in some sort of confused haze. These hazes were getting worse as her infection spread, and the doctors increased the dosages of drugs in her system, so she wasn't debilitated by pain. She probably ended up writing a dozen rambling, odd letters to her husband full of doodles, strange messages, and long declarations of love and regret.

 

In one of these strong hazes, she was surprised to see Peggy, Howard, and Erskine standing in her hospital room.

 

“Phillips won’t like it,” Peggy said.

 

“I don’t care,” Howard said. “She’s saved Erskine and this project, now it can save her.”

 

“From a technical standpoint,” Erskine said. “She would have all of the positive psychological qualities. Stephanie is a compassionate, honest, intelligent young woman.”

 

“Even if it works and she is enhanced, is it guaranteed to heal her?” Peggy asked.

 

"The serum, when it binds to the genetic structure, takes over the body and produces immediate effects as stimulated by the Vita-Rays. The more Vita-Rays, the more of a chance she has. Of course, that is to a point. Too many and her organic will begin to decay into nitramene."

 

“I’ve managed to increase the effectiveness of the reactor to one-hundred-and-twenty percent,” Howard said. "It's right at the cusp of stability. Pushed as far as could be safe."

 

“And if I utilize my last reserves of the serum, a bit under two recommended batches,” Erskine added, “then there will be enough serum to bind to her genetic material, stimulate regenesis, and improve her physical condition. She has a chance.”

 

“Would you do this for anyone who jumped in front of that bullet?” Peggy asked.

 

“I do not think that anyone else would have jumped in front of that bullet,” Erskine said. “Which is exactly why I am doing this for her.”

 

"Are we even sure she wants this?" Peggy asked. "She saw what happened to Hodge."

 

"Hey, Steph, honey?" Howard asked her. She rolled her head to one side to look at him. "Do you have any objections to this?"

 

For some reason, the only thoughts that directly came to mind images of Salvador Dali's surrealism. And, sequential to that, Stephanie didn't have the energy to move her mouth at all. She just stared at him blankly. He seemed to accept this as her being without objection.

 

“It won’t be easy to smuggle her in there. It’s surrounded by SSR agents,” Peggy said. “And we’d have to break her out of the hospital while she’s unstable.”

 

“Howard and I will set up Utero,” Erskine said. “You will extract her from the hospital. You’re the spy.”

 

“Alright,” Peggy said. “It’s stupid enough it may work.”

 

Stephanie didn’t have a great understanding of time, but she knew that it was dark again before Peggy arrived in her room while wearing a nurse’s uniform and holding a wheelchair.

 

“Let’s get you some fresh air, dear,” Peggy said in a perfect Brooklyn accent. It sounded like Stephanie’s. She helped Stephanie into the chair and made sure to bring along her stand of fluids as they walked through the hospital halls. It was all very bright and loud, and Stephanie was drifting between consciousness all the way down to the ambulance bay, where Erskine was to help Stephanie into the back of a van.

 

“Howard has distracted them by pretending the reactor is unstable and quarantining Utero,” Erskine said. “We will have perhaps ten minutes once we arrive to perform the procedure.”

 

“Will the effect of all her antibiotics and medications endanger the procedure?” Peggy asked.

 

“Possibly, but it’s her only chance,” Erskine said.

 

The rocking of the van through the streets of Brooklyn lulled Stephanie to sleep. She stayed asleep until she was being moved again, this time in front of an antiquities store. They pushed her with the wheelchair through the abandoned shop with a _CLOSED_ sign in the door. They went through the back to the elevator, and down into the belly of Utero.

 

“Took you long enough,” Howard said as they arrived. “Let’s hurry, Phillips and his men could be back any moment now.”

 

“Once we’ve started the process, we cannot stop it,” Erskine said. Howard and Peggy nodded. They helped move Stephanie onto the cold metal slab in the center of the room.

 

“Serum injection,” Erskine said. Stephanie felt a thousand tiny pinpricks in her arms, legs, and chest.

 

“Transitioning to the pod,” Peggy said. Stephanie felt herself being pulled through the air to an upright position and enclosed in a tight metal tube. She was in a pressure cooker, she realized.

 

“Activating Vita-Rays,” Howard called. Heat flooded the tight space. “Fifty percent!” He exclaimed. Stephanie was starting to feel uncomfortable, but her drug-infused haze and experience which chronic pain meant she hated the bright lights more than anything. “Eighty percent!” Howard called.

 

“What the hell are you doing!” Colonel Phillips roared.

 

“We’re saving her life,” Erskine said.

 

“Is that Stephanie Barnes?” Phillips asked.

 

“The serum will repair her,” Erskine said.

 

“Shut it down!” Phillips roared. “You hear me, Stark? Or I will throw you off the Manhattan-”

 

“Full power!” Howard said roughly. Being surrounded by pulsing, blinding radiation, only now did Stephanie react to the situation she was in. The pain was starting to set in, it felt like every cell in her body was on fire. Her bones were being pulled like taffy, her muscles were growing heavy on her frame, and her intestines were repairing and growing in her gut. She screamed in pain and confusion, and she realized in a blinding moment of clarity that she did not want to be there. She didn't want this to happen to her. She didn't want it. How could they have known if she wanted it or not when she was drugged to compliance?

 

The reactor cut off, and the pod split open, steam pouring out of the pod as Stephanie fell forward onto her hands and knees. The hospital gown she was wearing was straining, taut against her body. As she took her first breath of air, it was almost intoxicating to be flooded with oxygen. Her senses brightened. The haze from the drugs was gone. The pain was gone. All of it. The pain from her injuries, her ulcers, her heart, her lungs, her joints. Her vision was clear. Sounds were louder and crisper than ever on both sides. Erskine and Howard rushed over and helped her stand, and she was shocked to realize that she was as tall as Howard.

 

“The son of a bitch did it,” Phillips gaped.

 

“We did it,” Howard said happily.

 

“We did it,” Erskine agreed.

 

“How do you feel?” Peggy asked Stephanie.

 

“Taller,” Stephanie admitted. She didn't want to make any of them feel bad to know this isn't what she wanted. They had done it to save her life, she understood that. She just wasn't sure that becoming  _this_ was the best alternative.

 

“You look taller,” Peggy agreed with a smile.

 

* * *

 

They took about a dozen blood samples from Stephanie. Erskine was now assigned to a lab in the midwest, where he would be tasked with using Stephanie’s blood to recreate the serum for the second cohort, but he admitted that he believed it would take a few years, especially because he planned to stall. With outcomes like Hills and Hodge, he didn’t trust that weaponizing his serum was the best way to use it. The only way to use it in his eyes from now on was in small doses for medical therapy. He asked Howard to give him all the original notes and destroy all the secondary notes for Project Rebirth, as he didn’t want the serum to ever get into any hands other than his own. Stephanie said farewell to the man who saved her life and was sad to see him go after having worked with him for nearly a year. Peggy was also yelled at for insubordination and assigned to an SSR task force in London, basically shipped off to the front lines to continue working against HYDRA overseas. She didn’t seem at all upset with this outcome, glad to fight and help instead of babysitting scientists and soldiers. Unsurprisingly, Howard’s relationship with the military was not terminated, as his brilliance was far more important than when he broke the rules. He was, however, no longer allowed to pick and choose his assignments, and was going to the southwest for a few months to work on a project out there before they decided where they wanted him.

 

As for Stephanie, her offer from Senator Brandt was an interesting one. The military was trying to expand recruitment to the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps, they wanted her to join and help recruitment by touring around the country and showing women that they could be secretaries, communications officers, clerks, drivers, pilots, and mechanics for the military. He even promised her that she may get to see some action overseas. It was a way for Stephanie to help, and it would also ensure that she could help fight the Nazis directly, she accepted immediately. Unfortunately, Senator Brandt had a way of spinning words.

 

The “recruitment group” that Stephanie was touring the nation with were a collection of showgirls who had been recruited to the WAAC for the USO tours. The girls were all “Auxiliary First Class” which indicated they were Grade 6 enlisted servicewomen, while Stephanie was the “First Officer” which indicated she was a Grade 3 enlisted female officer. She spent about a month training with these girls for their USO show. Not only did she have to learn how to dance with them for a stage show, but she had to learn how to be polite and proper for when she did have to actually talk to groups of women for recruitment, or groups of politicians for funding. Senator Brandt was killing several birds with one Stephanie. She would be doing recruitment, bond advertisement, propaganda, and general boosting of morale. With her and the girls on these USO tours were two cowardly stage actors who managed to do these tours instead of fighting fascism directly. One of them would dress up as an American soldier, one would dress up as Hitler, and the climax of their stage show was the soldier defeating Hitler as Stephanie, and the girls “helped.”

 

Stephanie and the girls in her company had two uniforms. The first was the WAAC uniform. It was a stylized version of the traditional servicewoman uniform: a belted front-button coat with broad lapels and pins of the Greek goddess Athena, an A-line skirt that fell just below the knees, a light shirt, a narrow tie, a square hat with a long front brim, stockings, gloves, and modest heels that could either be loafers or lace-ups. For the typical woman, a WAAC uniform consisted of olive greens, khaki and chocolate browns, whites, and the occasional pale pink for a shirt. For these girls, their skirt, hat, and jacket were a bright sapphire color. Their shirt, stockings, and gloves were white, their shoes and tie were red, and in addition to the busts of the goddess of war, they had two white stars pinned to their lapels. For Stephanie, the three-rectangle insignia of her rank sat on her shoulder.

 

The show uniforms were far less professional and definitely showed quite a lot. For the auxiliaries, they had three possible outfits, all of the same pattern. The bodice had a halter top and broad lapels with large stars on either one. They had a thick belt, and then a full skirt with several layers of tulle to maximize their movements. Either there was a blue bodice with white stars and a red and white skirt, a white bodice with red stars and a red and blue skirt, or a red bodice with white stars and a white and blue skirt. They also had brimless box hats in the color of their bodice, white opera gloves, and silver, strappy dancing shoes. 

 

Stephanie’s outfit was likewise tasteless. She had to wear stockings with garters that were covered in bows and studded with small, sparkling stones. Her skirt was sapphire blue with forty-eight white stars along the hemline and had a white petticoat which made it fan out around her hips until the skirts ended abruptly just below her garters so the audience could see them when she moved onstage. Her bodice was little more than a red and white vertically striped corset, with a sweetheart neckline. Her gloves were also white opera gloves, her shoes were red dancing shoes, and her hair was neatly coiffed and curled. With the enhancements made by the soldier serum, Stephanie didn’t look like she was wearing an ill-fitting costume when she wore this ill-fitting costume. Her bosom was now full, and she had a deep cleavage as the corset was pressed to her chest. Her hips were full, even without the petticoats. Her arms and legs were long and toned. They were muscular. Even when she was keeping them relaxed, the definition of her muscle pressed out from beneath her skin. Her legs especially had visible lines, defining the tight muscles of her smooth thighs.

 

Being the object of attention and propaganda was not as bad as living out of a lab in the middle of the Midwest. And if she had to live in this new body, at least she could do something to help the cause with it. Something other than being a specimen to be poked, prodded, and taken apart piece by piece to understand how she worked. After the month of training to be both the prim and proper recruitment officer and the dazzling showgirl, Stephanie’s USO tour began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, I hope that you all enjoyed that chapter.
> 
> I would love to hear your thoughts about the way I changed Stephanie's enhancement in the comments below. It's a considerable departure from canon, and I really want to know what your reactions were. Any other forms of feedback including kudos, bookmarks and subscriptions are welcome and appreciated!
> 
> And, also, I would like to say Thank You to the late Stan Lee for helping create the universe which inspired all of us. Your legacy is going to be a good one, Mr. Lee, and I'm glad to experience it.
> 
> Thank you all again! Until the next chapter! :)


	5. Star-Spangled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to give a huge thank you to everyone who has been providing feedback and comments so far, I love interacting with you! And for those who gave kudos, bookmarked, subscribed, and read or continue to read this, thank you so much!
> 
> Just another little warning for this chapter, there's some sexual harassment directed toward Stephanie as she's a showgirl. It's somewhat vague, but I wish to give a short notice in case that something that might be a cause for concern. 
> 
> Without further ado...

Stephanie was standing behind the curtains, ribcage feeling especially constricted, and waiting for her cue. There was a loud triumphant blaring of trumpets, a steady roll, a second triumphant call, another steady roll, and the third triumphant call. Stephanie stepped through the red curtains, grinning and waving at the audience as the main melody began, the other women began to march and sing, “Who’s strong and brave here to save the American way?”

 

“Not all of us can storm a beach or drive a tank. But there’s still a way all of us can fight,” Stephanie announced to the audience.

 

“Who vows to help all the men do what's right, night and day?” They sang.

 

“With Series E Defence Bonds. Each one you buy is a bullet in the barrel of your best guy’s gun,” Stephanie told the audience.

 

“Who will campaign door to door for America? Carry the flag shore to shore for America? From Portland to Charlotte? The Girl With the Star-Spangled Heart!”

 

A raised set with wheels was pulled onto the stage. Sitting on this set were two girls in their show uniforms, but sitting at desks and pretending to listen to the radio and take notes. To the side of them, two girls in the show uniforms were working under the hood of the shell of a light truck painted red, white and blue. Stephanie twirled dramatically before she sat down at the edge of this set as it slowly was pulled across the stage by stage.

 

“We can't ignore there's a threat and a war we must win!” The singers on the stage called.

 

“Young women all across the nation are also joining the war effort!” Stephanie announced, presenting the girls on the sets to the audience.

 

“We need young ladies to help crack the codes from Berlin!” The singers sang.

 

“Codebreakers and mechanics are just two of the many roles that women can fill,” Stephanie explained.

 

“Who will answer the call of good America? Wearing coveralls, giving all to America? Who's here to do her part? The Girl With the Star-Spangled Heart!” The singers said. Stephanie stood up as the set disappeared stage left. 

 

“We need young, able-bodied men and women fighting if we’re going to win the war,” Stephanie told the audience.

 

“Ladies, come trade in your whisk for a wrench and help her!” They sang.

 

“Fighting is more than just being on the front lines, and anyone can fight,” Stephanie continued.

 

“Join us at the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps!” As the singers sang those lines, they all stood at attention and saluted the audience. 

 

“Before the war, I was a secretary,” Stephanie said. “Now, I’m an auxiliary soldier.”

 

“There is no match for the strength of America! These foolish goons who think they'll best America, even she will outsmart! The Girl With the Star-Spangled Heart!” The women sang.

 

There was an instrumental interlude, where Stephanie was supposed to lecture about War Bonds. “We all know this is about trying to win the war. We can’t do that without bullets and bandages, tanks and tents. That’s where you come in. Every bond you buy will help protect someone you love.” Children in the audience were starting yelling at Stephanie that there was someone behind her. She knew that it was the fake Hitler. He would grab her by the wrist and pull her away, she would scream, and the brave American soldier would come from stage right and pretend to deck him. She continued her lines, “Keep our boys armed and ready, and the Germans will think twice about trying to get the drop on us.” However, unlike every time before they had practiced, this time when “Hitler” grabbed her, it was around the waist, and he was pressing something that wasn’t his belt buckle against her as he pulled her to him and off the stage. She was so shocked that she forgot to scream. She glanced to the side of the stage, where the “brave American soldier” was asleep in a chair, a stagehand trying to shake him awake. Stephanie felt uncomfortable, so she took matters into her own hands. She slammed her heel into Hitler’s foot, spun around, kicked him between the legs, and decked him in the jaw. He flew several feet and off stage, tumbling into the pit orchestra. The flutists scattered and the audience applauded. Then Stephanie had to do her dance routine. Spinning and tapping, performing pirouettes and clicking her heels rhythmically against the stage.

 

“Loyal and steady and true!” Half of them sang, having gotten over the shock of what just happened to wait for their cue.

 

The other half followed with, “We need the men to shoot! So for other jobs, we substitute!”

 

“Sober and ready to defend the red, white, and blue!” The first half called.

 

“The red, white and blue!” The second half echoed.

 

“Secretaries, we can find a good job for you!” As they sang, a white motorcycle descended from the rafters with a complex rigging system of thin, steel cables “Sure as an Eagle will soar! Any young woman can learn to fix a car, too! She knows what we're fighting for!” Stephanie mounted the white motorcycle, and it slowly started to rise again, this time, with her on it. “Who'll lead all the brave women of America? We know it's Miss First Officer America! Who's committed to her part? Who'll finish what the men start? The Girl With the Star-Spangled Heart!” Confetti began to rain down from above her as the women skipped and kicked in a line beneath her, waving small American flags. There was a final triumphant conclusion to the sound, and the curtains slammed closed as the audience roared with applause. The motorcycle lowered again, Stephanie climbed off. As she did so, the showgirls were diagonally walking out in front to the curtains for the final bow. Stephanie reached the ground and was the last one to burst through the curtains, giving a darling smile and waving at the audience, she linked arms with the other girls, and bow. 

 

Backstage, Senator Brandt’s aide was speaking to the two men in the USO show. Hitler was being checked over by a nurse, while the American Soldier was being scolded for being absolutely corked for the first show. “What were you thinking?” The aide asked. “You missed your cue! You had one job!” He rounded on Stephanie. “And you! What were you thinking, punching Hitler in the face like that? Do you want people to know you’re an experiment?”

 

“I was thinking that he was pressing his  _ bayonet _ on my backside,” Stephanie said. “If you know what I mean.”

 

Hitler looked ashamed, and the nurse who was attending to him stood up as if insulted and said, “She definitely broke his jaw.” Stephanie was a little surprised to hear that. She knew she was strong with the serum. She had no idea she was _this_  strong.

 

“Are you sure it wasn’t some wardrobe malfunction?” The aide asked, suddenly looking very embarrassed.

 

“I’m a married woman, sir,” Stephanie said as politely as she could. “I’m certain I didn’t misunderstand.”

 

“Well, I mean, of course, that’s unacceptable!” The aide exclaimed. “I’ll make sure to inform Senator Brandt at once-”

 

“Inform me what?” Senator Brandt said.

“The reason everything went sideways was because he-” the aide pointed to the soldier “-had gotten so corked he couldn’t make his cue and he-” the aide pointed at Hitler “-was touching First Officer Barnes inappropriately on stage.”

 

Brandt nodded, “Well, the governor loved seeing Hitler get punched in the face by First Officer America. He was it was powerful imagery for a woman wearing the American flag to slug the face of fascism. Both to symbolize the strength of America and the weakness of the Nazis. With his analysis, I want to keep that for later shows. You, obviously, are fired, Hitler.” He said. “And you, can you stay off the juice?” He asked the soldier.

“Probably?” he replied.

“Good, you’re the new Hitler. First Officer Barnes, can you refrain from breaking  _ his _ jaw?”

“If he can refrain from touching the girls or me inappropriately,” Stephanie nodded.

“Great,” Brandt nodded. “We’re off to a dazzling start with the New York City show. Next is Buffalo, I believe?”

“Yes, sir,” Stephanie nodded.

“We need to get him to the hospital,” The nurse told Brandt’s aide, motioning at the former Hitler. “Between the broken jaw, possibly ruptured testicle, and a broken foot, he needs a doctor.”

 

* * *

 

When Stephanie arrived on the girls’ tour bus that night before they drove overnight to Buffalo, she was welcomed with applause. The women were ecstatic that she slugged Hitler, as Stephanie later learned, he had a habit of wandering into their dressing room and touching himself. Stephanie really hoped she ruptured both of his testicles.

“How’d you learn to fight like that?” Georgie asked Stephanie.

“From a friend of mine,” Stephanie replied. “She’s an agent for the British. An actual spy. She trained me.”

“And then you ended up here. It’s the same for me,” Leah agreed. “I thought I was actually going to go to the Mediterranean or something, but instead I’m prancing on stage in a bit more than lingerie.”

There were various sounds of assent around the bus, “We wanted to be soldiers. It feels hypocritical to be preaching how important the WAAC is when we never even got to go to basic training.” Abby shook her head.

“I’d pick up a rifle and shoot a Nazi if they’d let me,” Leah said. “Hell, I’d shoot a hundred Nazis.”

Stephanie hadn’t realized that she was the lone member of the traveling brigade who wanted to be more than a showgirl. She got to know the girls quite well on that bus ride to Buffalo. Several of them had been trained to be secretaries, mechanics, or code breakers, but Brandt’s USO tour thought they were the prettiest recruits and had them join the traveling show instead. They complained about their “effeminate” ranks. They’re not Privates First-class, and Stephanie isn’t a Captain, even though they all have the same army grade as those male ranks. They thought they’d get to be working on bases or camps, picking up a gun when the going got tough. Now, they were dancing and being forced to wear full faces of makeup.

Some girls, like Stephanie, were married. Others had a beau at war which promised to buy them a ring when he came home. Others were single. And there was a fair number whose romantic inclinations were not toward men. 

Stephanie liked getting to know the girls. Leah had worked at a phone company before joining the WAAC. Her uncle was a German Jew and had disappeared four years ago, she didn’t want to think about what had happened to him, but he was one of the reasons she joined. She knew how to work most communication devices, and anytime the radio was broken, she could twiddle with it for a few minutes and have it return better than ever. 

Christine was a computer, she was formally trained in mathematics and expected to be working at a lab somewhere, helping scientists build the guns and bombs that would kill Nazis. Instead, the only numbers she was spending time with were the ones in their dance routine count. It became a game on long rides to shout out two numbers to Christine, and she would multiply them in her head. She was never wrong.

Ruthie was perhaps the sweetest thing Stephanie had ever met. She was a schoolteacher, but she had grown up hunting with her father and brothers and had expected that she would end up working in an armory doing weapons repairs. Ruthie knew her way around a gun, and she insisted on teaching all the girls what was in the current arsenal. Her memory for firearms, tanks and other weaponry was staggering.

 

Angela was a trained secretary and file clerk, and she was an office manager in Virginia for a short while before the WAAC decided she was pretty enough to dance onstage. She often spoke about her girl, Julie, who was currently overseas working for the Air Force as a weather observer, forecaster, and scout. Julie always was making fun of her for dancing, and she made fun of Julie for cloud watching.

Georgie was the youngest. Her father owned an auto shop, and she was informally trained as a mechanic. She also was married. Once, when the bus malfunctioned in the middle of Idaho, Georgie hopped out and climbed up the side, popped open the hood, took one glance at the car, and started ordering the girls what they needed to fix the engine.

* * *

 

 

From Buffalo, they went up to Portland, Maine. Then they headed south and through Boston, Hartford, New York City again, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis. At all of these locations, they would have a few shows, bringing in staggeringly large crowds. When they weren’t being showgirls, the traveling caravan of the WAAC would speak at secretary schools, high schools, churches, and country clubs to try to recruit young women and sell war bonds. There were some concerns from the public that the WAAC would result in pregnancy and venereal disease outbreaks. Tha the women would steal civilian jobs or would take stateside jobs away from soldiers, resulting in their deaths. The girls were supposed to reassure the public that they were proper, upstanding women who wouldn’t dare get pregnant or seduce soldiers. Stephanie got to meet many interesting people, including a fashion designer who worked with Salvador Dali. After Minneapolis was their first but small hiatus, as it took about a week for them to cross through South Dakota, Wyoming, and Idaho. Their first west-coast show was in Seattle. Then they hit Portland, Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. 

They had a second and far more extended hiatus that spring, as MGM studios partnered with the military to make a First Officer America movie. Stephanie was a Hollywood starlet for about a month and a half, starring alongside Gene Kelly in a patriotic summer musical. Several of the Star-Spangled Singers were in the movie as well, and those who were not in the move either went home to see their families or helped by working as production assistants and seamstresses because staffing was low during the war. The plot was simple, formulaic, and inspired by the stage show. Stephanie was a beautiful and patriotic young officer, America, in the WAAC who was having a flirtation with a soldier portrayed by Kelly until she was kidnapped by the Nazis on an attack at the allied base. The WAAC helped fix up the base and get the men in order so Kelly could lead them to rescue First Officer America. Meanwhile, First Officer America gave a rousing solo of patriotism and the strength of America to the Nazis, broke out of her restraints, and beat them up just in time for Kelly to arrive after having stormed the Nazi base with his regiment. There was an ensemble dance number to “The Girl with the Star-Spangled Heart,” and Kelly winked at the audience and dipped America, going in for a kiss until the fade to black. They had initially wanted to shoot a kissing scene, but Stephanie refused, and everyone remembered what happened to Hitler.

Movies were not doing well because of the war, but it seemed everyone left in America wanted to see First Officer America on the silver screen. When there was a premiere that summer, Stephanie wore a feathered dress gifted to her by the designer she met in New York and listened to the audience be enchanted by her musical performance. What ended up being seventy-two minutes on the screen was ages worth of work, vocal lessons, and dance training, and Stephanie wasn’t close to being done with the tour either. Starring in a movie was considered her “break.”

* * *

 

Their next show was in Phoenix, then they had a show in Albuquerque. Albuquerque was probably Stephanie’s favorite show because of who managed to see it. Howard, who had been working in the southwest since helping Erskine and Peggy save Stephanie, managed to show up to see her show.

“Great job, Twinkle Toes,” Howard told her after the show as she went to sign autographs. She grinned at him and rolled her eyes. “I saw the movie, too, by the way. Sorry I couldn’t be at the premiere. Greta Garbo has a restraining order against me.”

  
“It’s fine if you were busy,” Stephanie told him. “How are you?”

“Busy,” Howard sighed. “I forgot how stupid I was until you’re not in the lab with me anymore.”

“There are plenty of brilliant computers wherever you are, I’m sure, as long as you manage to refrain from sleeping with them,” Stephanie said.

“That’s the issue, Stephanie,” Howard joked. He changed topics, “So, what does Mr. Barnes think about First Officer America?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Stephanie said.

“You have heard from him?”

“Yes, but… How do I even begin to explain it? I’m still not allowed to tell anyone about Rebirth. And I don’t want to lie to him, so I told him that I’m working recruitment with the WAAC now and I hope he doesn’t realize that the addresses line up with the USO tours.”

“So you aren’t lying, you’re just keeping things from him?” Howard asked. “He’s gonna have some questions about how you went through a second puberty when he was away.”

“We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it,” Stephanie sighed. “What about you, how much longer are you going to be in the southwest?”

“Not much longer. The SSR needs me in Europe, and they think I’ve proved my worth here since our Brooklyn blunder,” Howard said. “I’m not going anywhere behind enemy lines, don’t worry. I’m probably going to be working in some English laboratory.”

 

* * *

 

From Albuquerque, they toured through Denver, Oklahoma City, Wichita, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, New Orleans, Jackson, Memphis, Birmingham, Atlanta, Tampa, Miami, Jacksonville, Charlotte, Nashville, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, Baltimore, and the final show in the United States was in the capital, Washington D.C. 

On the way there, her worst show by far was in Jacksonville. When they were doing a stage check and dress rehearsal that morning, a man from the army came with a telegram of a deceased relative. Nearly every single woman in the room felt their blood go cold and their chest constrict. The messenger had forgotten his official clipboard with the names for the telegrams and said that he would have to go back to the base to fetch it, so they knew who died. Stephanie didn’t accept that. She had gotten to know these girls, she knew the names of every person they loved who was overseas.

“I outrank you,” She said, even though WAAC officers couldn't give men orders, she managed to intimidate the man into giving her the telegram. She held her breath as she opened it, scanning for the name. It wasn’t Bucky, but she didn’t let herself exhale. Slowly and steadily she said, “Georgie, it’s your husband.” Georgie and her husband eloped before he was shipped off to North Africa. Georgie was inconsolable, and many of the girls were equally rattled during the show. Selling war bonds felt futile when the people they loved were still dying.

* * *

 

 

The Washington show in late August, their final United States show before the smaller-scale international tour, was probably the most ostentatious. It seemed everyone in Washington was in attendance, and there was a dinner at the White House that evening where Stephanie had her photograph taken with just about every member of the Congress and cabinet. Stephanie was not there to just look pretty in her cherry-red ballgown and be kind to politicians. She managed to entertain a group of senators, generals, and War Department officials, and then start talking about how vital the WAAC was, explaining how the roles women were taking in the Army meant they deserved equal recognition, because it was definitely equal effort, even if they weren’t fighting on the front lines, they were still risking their lives.

“So you’d much rather be Captain America?” A general asked, amused by her request.

“It’s not about me, sir. It’s about the women who are in Europe right now, doing more than any of us, and being called auxiliary as if they weren’t filling vital and necessary roles,” Stephanie explained politely. “Imagine having to keep a base functioning without secretaries, nurses, mechanics, communications officers, codebreakers, drivers, and occasionally pilots. So why, if women are now the backbone of the Army, are we still auxiliary?”

“You know, Director Hobby was making a similar argument the other day,” one of the senators said. “You’re not asking for women to join men on the battlefield, you’re asking for them to be called privates and sergeants like them, right?”

“Yes,” Stephanie said. “Although, I know many of these women would gladly lay down their lives alongside men for America. They’re very brave, if only they were given more opportunities.”

“MacArthur was saying that the WAAC’s were his favorite soldiers,” A second general said. “They work harder and complain less.”

“In general, the WAAC has received praise for their capability and work ethic as soldiers,” Stephanie agreed. “Women aren’t as fragile as we’d like men to believe.”

The men laughed.

“If I didn't know any better, I would think you’re trying to integrate the military, Mrs. Barnes,” Senator Brandt said. “Could you imagine the public outcry if we started drafting women?”

“I just wish we had more opportunities to prove ourselves, sir,” Stephanie said.

 

* * *

In September, when Stephanie and a much smaller party of Auxiliaries First-Class were heading across the sea to London, they received word that thanks to recently passed legislation the WAAC was disbanded and replaced with the WAC, Women’s Army Corps. Furthermore, they also changed the ranks, so the women and men had the same terms for status. Stephanie was now Captain America and Georgie, Leah, Ruthie, Angela, and Christine were her Privates First-Class as they landed in Europe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for reading, I hope you all enjoyed.
> 
> Did you guys like how I changed her stage show? Rewriting lyrics is hard, mainly because the meter kept changing. I also had to cut some of the things I had about the WAAC/WAC and the United States during WWII just because this chapter was getting so long. But if you have any questions, I'd be glad to answer them below!
> 
> Until the next chapter! :)


	6. Liberation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this chapter is going to be long. It was initially supposed to be two separate chapters, but there wasn't a place where I felt comfortable splitting it. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has been reading and providing feedback in its many forms, I hope you enjoy this behemoth chapter!

 

Stephanie and the WAC spent nearly a month in England, which was the safest part of allied Europe. They toured up and down the island, doing USO shows and helping civilian groups repair places that had fallen victim to Nazi bombing campaigns. It seemed over here, it was much more of all hands on deck. There were successes in Southern France and Italy, and Stephanie wanted to prove that women could handle being on the front lines. Flying around northern France was probably the most dangerous part of their trip. They were on a civilian plane and weren’t entering Nazi airspace, but they had no idea what would happen while they were in the air. However, they landed safely and managed to tour a few towns and bases. It was a completely different atmosphere on these lines. It was both tense and relax, somehow incredibly dangerous but juvenile. Serious and impermanent at the same time.

 

There was no point in campaigning for war bonds or recruitment at these camps, so Stephanie made the executive decision that they would not be performing their traditional USO show. After all, everyone had practically seen their entire performance if they had seen the First Officer America movie, which was now being distributed as Captain America to honor the changes to the Women’s Army Corps. Instead, the girls would come with supplies. As it was becoming winter, there were sweaters, scarves, mittens, and socks that had been knitted or crocheted by American and British women for the men on the front lines. The girls would come and talk to the men, give them these gifts from home, and sometimes even dance with them while wearing their red, white and blue winter WAC uniforms. Stephanie signed copies of _Captain America_ posters and postcards. She had modeled for these drawings when she was in Los Angeles, all of the proceeds going to support the war. It seemed that these posters had been doing very well because nearly every man on the front had a picture of her in either her showgirl uniform or her movie uniform, which was basically the showgirl uniform but designed for large dance numbers.

 

The whole purpose of their campaign through France and Italy was to spread a little bit of joy to the men who had been at war for months, and for some, years. The least Stephanie could do for these men besides fighting beside them, was to help raise morale. Which is why she had no problems dancing with them, as long as they were respectful. A few times, a soldier had gotten handsy. It usually wasn’t with her, she was intimidating, but some of her privates were far less Amazonian. A few times, Stephanie had to step between a soldier and one of her girls if they didn’t manage to punch him before she got there, but that was usually where it ended.

 

With the success of the offenses in Italy, they managed to tour up the peninsula, going as far North as a compound in Italy, five miles from the Italian Front at Umbria. It was there that Stephanie met an old friend. Peggy Carter greeted the plane of the WAC girls. Stephanie immediately hugged her and introduced her to Georgie, Angela, Ruthie, Christine, and Leah, the girls who had been traveling with her as she was doing charity work, distributing supplies, and uplifting morale. Peggy was immediately identified by the girls like the one who taught Stephanie to fight, and launched into an array of stories of their Captain being their bodyguard, slugging Hitler so hard it became part of the USO show, and the time she won a shooting match in southern France.

 

“What are you doing here?” Stephanie asked.

 

“Officially I’m not here at all,” Peggy said. “I understand you’re ‘America’s New Hope’?”

 

“Bond sales take a ten percent bump in every state I visit,” Stephanie said. “And the WAC is not only is recruiting at record rates but got integrated rankings last month because I got along so well with the War Department. At least Brandt’s got me doin’ this. Phillips would have me stuck in a lab.”

 

“Phillips is here,” Peggy warned Stephanie.

 

“Lovely,” Stephanie sighed. “You know for the longest time I dreamed about serving my country. I finally get everything I wanted because I’m signing my own pin-ups.”

 

The girls went through their typical distribution of winter supplies, Stephanie signed pictures of herself, talked to the men about their health and their families, and generally tried to make them feel better.

 

“They look like they’ve been through hell,” Stephanie sighed after all the men had sweaters and socks. “I’ve been all around Italy for the last two weeks, and in comparison, these guys are depressed.”

 

Peggy nodded in agreement, “Schmidt sent out a force to Azzano. Two hundred men went up against him, and less than fifty returned. Your audience contained what was left of the one-oh-seventh. The rest were killed or captured.”

 

Stephanie’s head snapped up, and she felt her stomach churning, “One-oh-seventh?” She asked.

 

“Yes, why?” Peggy asked.

 

Stephanie broke away from the rest of the WAC girls, heading toward the commander’s tent. She walked in unceremoniously, seeing Colonel Phillips working at a desk, “Colonel Phillips, sir,” She saluted.

 

Well, if it isn’t the Girl With the Star-Spangled Man Heart,” Phillips said. “How’s dancing suiting you? I saw you with Gene Kelly-”

 

“I need the casualty list from Azzano,” Stephanie said.

 

“You don’t give me orders, sweetheart,” Phillips said.

 

“Just one name, sir, Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes,” Stephanie said.

 

Phillips leaned to look at Peggy, “You and I are gonna have a conversation later that you won’t enjoy.”

 

“Please, sir,” Stephanie said. “Please, just tell me if he’s alive. It’s B-A-R-”

 

“I can spell,” Phillips said. “I remembered your husband’s name, Captain. I’m sorry.”

 

Stephanie was numb, “What about the others? Are you planning a rescue mission, since you know where they were taken?”

 

“Yeah, it’s called winning the war,” Phillips replied. “They’re thirty miles behind the lines. Through the most heavily fortified territory in Europe. We’d lose more men than we’d save. But I don’t expect you to understand that, because you’re a chorus girl.”

 

“Right, yes,” Stephanie said. She glanced around, committing every piece of tactical information she could get to memory. “Sorry, sir. I should head to our next supply distribution.”

 

“You should,” Phillips agreed.

 

Stephanie found the rest of the WAC.

 

“What’s wrong, Cap?” Christine asked.

 

“Um,” Stephanie said shakily, “I just found out that Bucky’s-” She stopped. Was he dead? Captured? She didn’t know, but there were hundreds of Americans just thirty miles North, and she wasn’t going to let them rot. “You girls should continue the tour, there are only a few spots left on the map.”

 

“What about you?” Leah asked.

 

“I’m staying behind for later transport,” Stephanie said. “Be safe.”

 

“Don’t worry, if there’s any funny business, we’ll sic Georgie on them,” Angela said. “It’ll be alright, baby.”

 

“Thanks,” Stephanie said. She hung around in their tent and listened to the plane take off. Now she was stranded on the base, and she needed to get to work. She saw an automobile yard on her way there. She would have to sneak into the armory. She still had all her bags, with some tools she brought with because the bus kept breaking down on their United States tour, a sewing kit in case there were a costume malfunction and her additional pieces of uniform. She put on her thick white stockings, traded out her pretty red loafers for the massive red boots, and set to work with a roll of signed posters under an arm and her handbag.

 

“I think you boys missed me,” She said to the guards. They glanced at her and nodded “Very sorry, the supplies should’ve been taken to your rooms, but would you like posters?”

 

“Yes please, ma’am,” One smiled. She gave him a poster.

 

“So, what’re you guarding?” She asked.

 

“The armory, ma’am,” The other said.

 

“Wow,” Stephanie said. “Have you guys got a Browning M1917A1?” She asked, remembering Ruthie’s lectures on modern warfare. “It’s just, I’ve been all across the front, and it seems that nobody has a heavy machine gun.”

 

“We have an M2HB,” The first one said. “Do you want to see it?”

 

“Yes, oh my, could I? I don’t want to get you boys in trouble, but I’ve always wanted to see the big guns.” She smiled, as hard as it was, and gave a delicate laugh. Once they let her in, it was effortless to smuggle several sidearms, knives, and multiple loads of ammo into her handbag, all she had to do was ask to see a huge gun, and they would delicately take it out of the box to show her that they could lift it. Once her handbag was full, she thanked them for their service and made sure that they were left grinning after her. She went back to their tent, where Peggy Carter was waiting for her.

 

“Your plane left,” Peggy said.

 

“I got new orders,” Stephanie said.

 

“From who?” Peggy asked.

 

“Me,” Stephanie said.

 

“Stephanie, I know you love your husband, but you have no idea if he’s alive-”

 

“But I’m willing to bet there’s at least one American over there who is. And I’m not going to abandon him,” Stephanie said. “I’m a Super Soldier. I have Erskine’s serum running through my veins. I’m meant for more than this.”

 

“You are,” Peggy agreed. “I can get a plane and pilot by the end of the day.”

 

“Okay,” Stephanie said. “I need some more supplies.”

 

“ _More_ supplies?” Peggy asked. “When did you first get supplies?”

 

Stephanie showed Peggy the contents of her handbag. “I still want to see what I can find. I was going to the motor pool-”

 

“Don’t,” Peggy shook her head. “The scrap pile is completely unguarded. You’ll find better things there.”

 

“Alright,” Stephanie said.

 

“Meet me on the airfield at sundown, in two hours,” Peggy said.

 

“I will,” Stephanie nodded.

 

Taking Peggy’s advice into account, Stephanie headed to the scrap pile. Peggy was right, there were mechanical bits, buckleless belts, and other supplies that would suffice. She piled them with her and returned to the tent. She used the sewing kit and the leather strips to make a harness to holster her two side arms and ammunition. She also took a sizeable, armored hubcap from some sort of armored car she didn’t recognize, possibly from the enemy side. It was about two feet in width, and bulletproof. She used the extra leather to make straps so she could carry it easily. With her colts, her ammo, her boots, a dented helmet, aviator goggles, and the hubcap-shield, Stephanie was ready for Peggy.

 

“Hey,” She greeted her. There was now a downpour of rain as dusk fell.

 

“You definitely came supplied,” Peggy noted. “That’s our plane,” She noted to the one at the end of the runway. Stephanie followed Peggy.

 

“Who’s the pilot?” Stephanie asked.

 

“An old friend,” Peggy replied. They reached the plane, and Howard stepped out of it.

 

“I heard about the Sarge,” Howard said sympathetically, squeezing Stephanie’s shoulder. “We’re gonna get him back, Cap.”

 

“Thank you,” Stephanie said. “Both of you.”

 

“Thank us when you’re back here, safe,” Peggy said.

 

* * *

 

They managed to get into Nazi airspace, the storm was definitely helping reduce visibility. “I didn’t know you could fly a plane,” Stephanie told Howard.

 

“I’m full of surprises,” Howard called from the cockpit.

 

“The Hydra camp is in Krausberg, tucked between these two mountain ranges. It’s a factory of some kind,” Peggy explained.

 

“We should be able to drop you right on the doorstep,” Howard agreed.

 

“Just get me close,” Stephanie said. “What about you? You two are gonna be in a lot of trouble at the lab.”

 

“And you won’t?” Peggy asked.

 

“Where I’m goin’, if anybody yells at me I can just shoot ‘em,” Stephanie said.

 

“They will undoubtedly shoot back,” Peggy warned.

 

“That’s why I made this,” Stephanie noted to the shield. “Let’s hope it’s good for something.”

 

“Agent Carter, if we’re not in too much of a hurry I thought we could stop off in Lucerne for a late night fondue,” Howard said.

 

“Are you always flirting with everyone?” Stephanie asked.

 

“I’m trying to diffuse tension,” Howard said.

 

“You’re just making more,” Stephanie said.

 

“Agreed,” Peggy added. She handed Stephanie a small box, “This is your transponder. Activate it when you’re ready, and the signal will lead us straight to you.”

 

Heavy enemy fire started around the plane. Howard maneuvered, but Stephanie knew they were going to get shot down if she didn’t get out. She pulled on the parachute and headed to the main entrance.

 

“Get back here, we’re taking you all the way in!” Peggy exclaimed.

 

“We’d get shot out of the sky before we could make it there,” Stephanie said. “As soon as I’m free, you turn this thing around and get the hell outta here!”

 

“You can’t give me orders,” Peggy said.

 

“The hell I can’t, I’m a Captain,” Stephanie said, and then she jumped out of the plane.

 

* * *

 

Falling out of a plane would have been exhilarating if it wasn’t terrifying. When Stephanie landed, she landed in a forest, and her parachute caught on a tree. She used a stolen knife to cut herself free, and she hit the ground hard, breaking the transponder in the process. Oh well. Now, she needed to head East. She had a compass, and she started her trek. She made it all the way to the edge of the treeline, where she could see the large gates with lookout posts and roaming spotlights. She needed a different approach rather than waltzing in the front door. 

 

She heard vehicles below her, so she dropped down into the shrubbery and watched a supply convoy roll in. She waited until the last car passed her, and then she ran behind and into the final covered truck. She vaulted up and landed on her butt, seeing two men in leather uniforms, with black tinted goggles, full-face helmets, and red octopi patches on their shoulders, not the typical Nazi insignia. They ran at her, and she pressed off against the floor, launching her hips into the air and kicking the closest one in the chin with both feet. He flew directly upwards, his head hitting the canvas cover of the truck. She used the momentum of her kick to leap into a crouching position. She dodged a swing from the other soldier and then slammed into him with her hubcap-shield. While he was disoriented, she struck him again in the face, this time with her fist, and then kicked him in the knee. He fell down. The second man tried to grab Stephanie from behind, but she shoved the side of the shield into him and bashed him over the head with it. She then threw both men out of the back of the truck. The convoy passed through the gate, and nobody was the wiser that she had gotten inside the HYDRA compound.

 

When she realized the supply convoy was backing into a docking bay, she positioned herself at the back of the truck bed, the shield protecting her body. When she saw the canvass flap lift, she pushed the shield into the unwitting man and knocked him backward. Once she was sure the coast was relatively clear, she jumped out and headed toward their motor pool. The six-legged octopi (sextapi?) were everywhere, and she realized where the hubcap she was using had come from after observing some of the technology they had.

 

The best way to get from the unloading docks to the heart of the factory was to get on the rooftops, as it seemed that was where the roaming spotlights didn’t seem to scan, and there were far fewer guards posted up there. Stephanie ran over to a tank, climbed up the side, and jumped off the top, landing on the rooftop of the two-story garages warehouses that lined the main factory. She then started to run toward the factory, assuming that the prisoners would be in the best-guarded depths of the facility.

 

She managed to jump between the rooftops of the warehouses, taking down the heavily armored HYDRA soldiers as she did so. Often, she snuck up from behind, broke one or both of their knees, and choked them to unconsciousness. She was trying to refrain from causing a shootout until after she had reached the prisoners, as she so far had stealth on her side. She climbed through a window of the main factory. It seemed the windows only lead to the outer halls, and the access points between floors were in the heart of the factory. She needed to get inside one of the primary development or storage rooms on her level to have full access to the facility. The other unfortunate thing was that these heavy doors had locks on them, ones that Stephanie couldn’t pick.

 

Stephanie decided to knock.

 

When a guard came to the door, she immediately slammed his head between the heavy steel door and the heavy steel frame. There was a sickening crack as the man slumped down. She pulled him out of the way and kept low, ducking behind crates and paying attention to her surroundings as she headed deeper into the belly of the factory. She could see, hear, and smell the HYDRA soldiers long before they were even closer to realizing that she was near. The other thing that she was paying attention to in the facility were the weapons. The structure of the bombs, the size of the munitions, and the unknown power source she stumbled upon. What looked like car batteries, but with a bright blue light, were spread across a workbench. She pocketed some of the smaller versions of this power source, knowing that Howard would be interested in them.

 

She had no idea where the prisoners were. It wasn’t like she managed to find a map that said _Dungeons_ with red arrows pointing at it. However, whichever floor they were using for prisoners would have far less energy output than the levels which they were using for weapon development, and that was where Stephanie decided to start because she knew exactly where the main lines were. She followed the path of breaker boxes until she found the main service breaker and circuit panel, two stories down, right in the middle of the factory. They cared about their power. Thankfully, even Germans used the same numbers, and she knew which floor had the least allocation of resources, meaning it lacked production equipment, indicating it was the best place where the prisoners were being held. She committed the four other possibilities to mind so she wouldn’t have to come back, and then she took a few steps back, raised her pistol, and shot at the breaker. There was sparking and whirring, and the power for the factory went out. Now, she needed to get those men to safety.

 

They were on the ground floor, which was actually split into the ground floor and the basement. The ground floor had catwalks and grating systems, which exposed the prisons in the basement. Stephanie exited onto a catwalk, took out a guard with a kick to the gut and a hubcap to the back of the neck, and looked around to see who was guarding the main floor. It seemed like it was just one man with a huge, glowing blue gun. He was making steady rounds between the rows of grates and coming close to Stephanie as he did so. Stephanie balanced onto the railing of the catwalk, waiting. As he walked under her, she dropped down, her boot smashing into his helmet as her entire force fell onto his neck. He collapsed onto the ground. She rolled him onto his back and used his own handcuffs to subdue him, just in case he managed to survive that. She then started to take his keys off of him.

 

“Who are you supposed to be?” One of the prisoners asked her, looking up at her in confusion.

 

“I’m Captain America,” She said as if it was obvious. It wasn’t obvious. But she needed to have some semblance of authority.

 

“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” A polite British soldier said. “But I don’t understand. You are a female Captain?”

 

“They integrated the American Women’s Army Corps last month,” Stephanie said. “You probably didn’t hear with being out on the front and all.”

 

“But your name is America?” He asked. Stephanie didn’t have time to debate. She hurried off, but she could still hear them talking.

 

“Wait - First Officer America?” Another soldier asked. “She’s a movie star - a recruitment showgirl.”

 

“Well, I doubt many showgirls can do _that_ ,” The first soldier replied.

 

Stephanie got into the basement level and started unlocking the cages. She checked over every single man who she encountered. This wasn’t just the one-oh-seventh, she realized, as there were over four hundred men down here. They had been used as slave labor for the factory, among other things. They were packed tightly into the cages, but she was confident that not a single one was Bucky.

 

“Is that everyone?” Stephanie asked. “What about Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes?”

 

“There’s an isolation ward in the factory, they do experiments there, but no one’s ever come back from it,” One of the men who had been there for a while said.

 

“Barnes got himself taken right away when he heard, to protect the rest of us,” One of Bucky’s fellow infantrymen said.

 

“Stupid,” Stephanie sighed. “Alright, the tree line is northwest, eighty yards past the gate. Your shortest route is if you cut through the west warehouses and escape through the motor pool. Get out fast and give ‘em hell boys. I’ll meet you all in the clearing with anybody else I find, and we’ll take a steady hike through no man's land until we’re back to our lines.

 

“Wait, you’re here alone?” One man asked.

 

“I got in alone, I shut down the power alone, I’m getting out with all of you,” Stephanie said.

 

“And you know what you’re doing?” A second man asked.

 

Stephanie turned around, “Yeah, I’ve ruptured Hitler’s testicles.” She tried not to smile at the sea of winces as she headed off to the isolation ward.

 

* * *

 

 

She headed through the dark brick tunnels beneath the factory, following the directions she got from the men about the fact that the isolation ward was near the inner labs. She took out every soldier she encountered, no longer worried about stealth and steady with the pistols, one in each hand. She would charge down a hall, bullets ricocheting off of her hubcap. Either she got close enough she could smack the closest soldier, or there would be a lull to reload, and she would raise her pistol and get them in the exposed places of their heavy armor. The lower half of their face was exposed, and a bullet to the jaw still made them drop.

 

She rounded a corner and was confronted with a short man in a suit, with an overfilled bag and pages of blueprints stuffed under his arms. She saw him in the dim light from the half-windows at the ends of the corridor. He looked at her, fear in his eyes, and then scurried away. She considered chasing after him. She realized though, scientists would be near the inner labs, and she hurried over to the room he left.

 

One half of the room was a converted office space, with filing cabinets and a workbench. There was a rack with all sorts of tools Stephanie believed were not for pleasant purposes. In the other half of the room, there was a table with a powerless spotlight above it, and a man strapped down. A deep, croaky voice said, “Sergeant. Three-two-five-five-seven-” Relief flooded her. She knew that voice, and she knew that man. She sprinted through the small workshop, stopping beside the bed and examining him. He was alive. He didn’t smell like he was infected, although he didn’t smell good. He was caked in grime, dirt, possibly dried blood. But he was alive.

 

“Bucky,” She said, relieved. He stared blankly at the ceiling. She didn’t want to think about what had been happening to him, or how long it had been since he ate. She looked around the room. There was some sort of instrument hanging from the ceiling, with three sharp prongs and a series of opaque tubes. She grabbed one of the tubes and ripped it out, stuffing it in her other pocket. She pulled out the tactical knife and sawed through the belted restraints, ripping them off his body and going back to check him over. He started to stir.

 

“I-is that-” He started. He had a glazed, dreamy expression in his eyes. As if he had been heavily medicated.

 

“It’s me,” Stephanie said. “It’s Steph.”

 

“Steph?” He said, starting to smile.

 

“Come on, Buck,” She said, pulling him by the arms until he was up and off the table. She immediately hugged him, burying her face into his neck and trying not to cry. She just needed to hold him, to know that he was really there, he was really alive. “I thought you were dead,” She said as she pulled away, still having to keep him steady.

 

“I thought you were smaller,” Bucky replied, looking her up and down in complete surprise. Explaining Rebirth to him when he was thinking straight was going to be a pain in Stephanie’s ass. There was an explosion outside. She knew they needed to get out of there as soon as possible. She looked around, documenting the room one last time. She saw a map in an observation suite above this room. There were six factories on the map. There were also blueprints on the walls for various machines and aircraft. She squinted at them. They were memorized. She slung Bucky’s arm around her shoulder and carried him out of the room as his feet slid around the floor as he tried to walk. This was just going to slow them down. She scooped him up, bridal-style, and started to jog steadily down the corridor.

 

“What happened to you?” Bucky asked.

 

“I joined the Army,” Stephanie replied.

 

“Wait, _what_?” Bucky asked. “The Army did this to you?”

 

“Well, I mean, not intentionally,” Stephanie said. “It was the project that I was working on for the Army. With Dr. Erskine and Howard. Erskine created a serum to cure disease, although it was more potent than anyone anticipated. The Army wanted to militarize it before the Nazis could. Something went wrong, there was a spy who got into our lab, he tried to kill Dr. Erskine-” Stephanie said. “So I did something stupid. Ended up getting shot-” Bucky’s brow furrowed “-infected-” his face flashed with worry “-and on the verge of death in a drug-induced haze. Howard, Erskine, and Peggy didn’t think it was fair, so they went against orders and used Erskine’s serum and our project to save my life. There were some bonuses.” Stephanie said. “Besides being bigger and stronger… my asthma and chronic pain are gone, my ulcers are healed, my arrhythmia went away, my eyes are better, my ears are better - every sensation is enhanced. I’m faster too, mentally. My memory is perfect everywhere. And I probably eat my weight every day now, but I’m an all-American bombshell.” She tried to make a joke out of that last one, as so far her husband’s reaction was shock and concern.

 

“Did it hurt?” Bucky asked.

 

“A little,” Stephanie said. She was so drugged when it happened she barely knew what was happening.

 

“Is it permanent?” Bucky asked.

 

“So far,” Stephanie said melodically, remembering Hills.

 

She and Bucky reached the stairwell, which was far too narrow for her to carry him up.

 

“You got this?” She asked. He nodded. She set him down. He went first, her behind him, and they went up the maze of steel stairs. She wanted them to get to the rooftop level because she was sure that the route through the base would now be unmaneuverable with all the explosions she had heard going on outside. The men definitely had given hell. When they were at about the third level of the factory, several loud explosions started to erupt along the main factory line. Fire and smoke started to climb. “Higher,” She told Bucky. They made it up to a catwalk when a voice called to her.

 

“First Officer America!” A man with a German accent called from the other end of the catwalk. “How exciting. I am a great fan of your film.”

 

“Actually, it’s _Captain_ America,” Stephanie said. “We’re not auxiliary anymore.”

 

He smiled as he headed toward her. “So, Dr. Erskine managed it after all. Not exactly an improvement. But still, impressive.” They were both walking toward each other as he made weird, leering faces. When he got close enough, Stephanie lunged forward with a cross to the face. His head snapped back, and he sagged against the railing of the catwalk.

 

“You’ve got no idea,” She hissed. As Schmidt pulled himself up, she noticed half of his face was sagging, and a strange red rim was under his right eye. As if his skin was peeling away from his own face.

 

“Haven’t I?” He asked, aiming to strike her. She lifted the bullet-reflecting hubcap, and his fist dented right through it. She pulled out her gun from the side holster, but he knocked her back before she could take aim, and it fell into the fire. He stalked toward her. She pushed up off of the ground, holding the railing, and kicked him in the chest. He flung backward. She scrambled to her feet and pulled out her second pistol.

 

She emptied her chamber in his direction, disoriented from his strike, but still getting him in the leg, arm, and upper chest. His scientist who had been experimenting on Bucky hit a button, and the catwalk pulled away, separating the two. Stephanie watched as the man slowly picked himself up.

 

“No matter what lies Erskine may have told you, you see, I was his greatest success!”

 

He started to pull at the skin of his neck as if peeling it off. In fact, it seemed that his face was actually a rubber mask, which explained his very expressionless demeanor. When the mask fell away, what stood to face them was a red skull. His skin had burned until it was sunken and crusted. His bones stood out. His nose was gone, burned away, the only thing left was his exposed septum. He had no eyelids, no cheeks, no ears. It was as if he had burned up and shriveled, like mice when they were exposed to too many unstable Vita-Rays.

 

“You don’t have one of those, do you?” Bucky asked, sounding like he was going to be sick.

 

“You are deluded, Captain. You pretend to be a simple soldier, but in reality, you are just afraid to admit you have left humanity behind. Unlike you, I embrace it proudly, without fear!”

 

“Stop with the self-righteous crap, you crusty, genocidal coward!” She yelled. She lifted her pistol again, now reloaded, and started shooting at him and his scientist friend again. They ducked as the elevator doors closed. “What a bitch,” She cursed.

 

“That’s the Stephanie I remember,” Bucky joked.

 

Explosions were still happening below them, “We need to cross that chasm,” Stephanie said. “If they’re evacuating that way, it’s our best bet.”

 

“How?” Bucky asked, looking at the vast space of chasm. Stephanie looked around.

 

“There,” She pointed to the arm of a gantry crane. It was extended just enough that it almost reached the other side of the room. “Let’s go, one at a time, you first,” she said. Bucky didn’t argue. He crossed the gantry, but it started to creak and lean the closer he got to the other end. He leaped the gap, and the gantry fell behind him. He pulled himself up on the other side, but now Stephanie had no way over. He realized this and started looking around frantically.

 

“There’s gotta be a rope or something!” He exclaimed.

 

“Just go! Get out of here!” Stephanie yelled back at him.

 

“No! Not without you!”

 

Stephanie shook her head. She had done a six-foot vertical jump. Maybe she could do a twenty-foot vertical leap. Forget the math, forget reason. She backed up and then started into the hardest sprint of her life. She leaped off the edge of the catwalk, the fire crackled below her, smoke poured around her. She hit the side of the catwalk in her mid-stomach and sunk her hands into the grating of the catwalk, pulling herself up. Bucky helped, keeping her steady as she rolled onto the catwalk. The smell of smoke and the heat of the flames pulled them back to reality, and they took the elevator out. Stephanie was quite proud to see the amount of blood that Schmidt - she assumed that was Schmidt - had lost at her hands. Penance for her getting shot and getting into this whole mess a few months prior. And also for the eugenics and systematic ethnic cleansing, that too deserved plenty of bullets.

 

She and Bucky navigated the wreckage of the Hydra base, making it past the decimated fence line, and into the clearing deep in the forest. That was where the group was waiting. Most of the men had made it, with nearly four hundred left. When they saw her and Sergeant Barnes, the cheered. The one-oh-seventh greeted Bucky with joy, as his sacrifice to go to the isolation ward had been well known within his infantry.

 

“It’s a twenty-mile hike,” Stephanie explained, sketching out the maps she remembered from Colonel Phillips tent. “Mostly downhill. We need to move as a block. Those with weapons on the outside. Those who are injured in the middle. I’ll lead.”

 

“Can we bring the tank?” One man asked.

 

“Absolutely. And the trucks and the guns,” Stephanie said. “Bring everything.”

 

Weapons were distributed, so everyone on the outside had some sort of firearm. Whether a rifle, pistol, submachine gun, or one of the strange weapons from HYDRA. Stephanie led the men, with Bucky at her side, and much of the one-oh-seventh piled in front.

 

“You know First Officer - sorry - Captain America?” Dugan asked him.

 

“Biblically,” Stephanie added.

 

“We’re married,” Bucky said, frowning at her comment.

 

“That’s what I meant,” she teased.

 

“Wait, Captain America is your Stephanie?” He asked. “You said she was a sweet little thing.”

 

“I was little,” Stephanie agreed. “Since when have I ever been sweet, Buck?”

 

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, I suppose?” Bucky shrugged.

 

“But - I mean - you said she was not even five feet tall. How does a woman grow a foot-”

 

“They’ve done wonderful things with hormones and modern medicine,” Stephanie said. “I was sick. I got treatment. It was like a second puberty.”

 

“Sounds expensive,” Dugan said.

 

“Why else do you think I became a USO showgirl?” Stephanie asked. “I owed the Army.”

 

“Well, after today, the Army owes you.”

 

“Damn right they do,” Bucky grumbled. Stephanie was starting to get the feeling that he wasn’t satisfied with her being the way she was now. And she felt strangely uncomfortable about it. She would have been equally uncomfortable if he was suddenly acting as if this new version was strides better. But he couldn’t at least be happy about her improved health. For weeks, he’d taken care of her after she had gotten some infection or had a particularly bad week of migraines or chronic pain. Now, she was healthier than a horse. That was at least cause for celebration. She was no longer sickly pale and skinny, but radiant and Amazonian. And it was also undeniable that Stephanie’s new body was incredibly attractive. She had come to terms with what Howard and Erskine had done without her permission. She appreciated the enhancements at certain times, definitely. She couldn’t have helped these men without them.

 

* * *

 

 

Dawn broke as they walked. And for several more hours, the continued heading south. Finally, Stephanie realized that they were a few minutes north of the base. There was noise coming from the base as they approached. Loud calls, and people cheering. Stephanie, in her stained and dirtied reds, whites and blues was leading a group of men in their olives, browns, and greys. The line of men greeted and cheered at Stephanie, shocked and impressed that she had brought all these men back, and very grateful. Those from the group started to greet their friends and their “friends” who had been rescued, patting each other on the back, rustling each other’s hair, hugging. Colonel Phillips greeted Stephanie as she entered the camp. She stood up straight and saluted him until he saluted her back.

 

“Some of these men need medical attention,” She announced. “And I surrender myself to disciplinary action.”

 

“That won’t be necessary,” Phillips said. He looked around at the men she had brought back. And then, he offered her the smallest illusion of a smile.

 

“Yes, sir,” She said.

 

As he went off, Peggy came over, stepping close to Stephanie to glare up at her, “You’re late,” she said.

 

“Couldn’t call my ride,” Stephanie smiled, showing Peggy the broken transponder.

 

Peggy looked down at the transponder, and then up at Stephanie. Stephanie felt shivers.

 

“HEY!” Bucky called. Stephanie turned around. “Let’s hear it for Captain America!”

 

The base erupted into enthusiastic cheers and whistles. No leering. No peeking at her garters. No thinking about her pin-ups. Just the men, cheering Stephanie for her success, and patting her on the back. She smiled at her husband, and in the moment of chaos and rowdiness, took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. He offered her a trying smile and squeezed back, but she could tell that things were bothering him, and she was going to figure them out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed.
> 
> What are your thoughts on Stephanie's rescue of the men at Azzano? I know a lot of you were looking forward to her being reunited with Bucky, so I hope you enjoyed that part, at least.
> 
> As always, your many forms of feedback are always appreciated, and comments are especially adored!
> 
> Thank you all, until the next chapter. :)


	7. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's been reading and providing feedback in its many forms! I hope you guys like this chapter! Bucky and Stephanie finally get to talk (among other things ;) )
> 
> I hope you enjoy! :)

 

As soon as the planes got to Azzano, Stephanie and the survivors of the HYDRA base were shipped to London with Colonel Phillips and Agent Carter. The SSR immediately interviewed them, and Stephanie had plenty of intel from the Hydra base. Between the power cartridges, she stole, the trace chemicals of the plastic tube in the lab, and her recreations of the blueprints and the map that she saw. Brandt wanted her back in the United States for a victory publicity tour, but the SSR was offering her something much more lucrative.

  
“The fifth one was here, in Poland, right near the Baltic. And the sixth one was about here, thirty-five or so miles west of the Maginot line.”

  
“Not thirty-five exactly?” Peggy asked, clearly teasing.

  
“I only got a quick look,” Stephanie shrugged, smiling. “These are the weapon factories we know about. Sergeant Barnes said that HYDRA shipped all the parts to another facility that isn’t on this map.”

  
“Agent Carter, coordinate with MI6. I want every Allied eyeball looking for that main HYDRA base,” Phillips said.

  
“What about us?” Peggy inquired.

 

“We’re going to be lighting a fire under Johann Schmidt’s ass. What do you say, Captain Barnes? It’s your map, you think you can wipe HYDRA off of it?”

 

“Yes, sir. I’ll need a team.”

 

“We’re already putting together the best men,” Colonel Phillips said.

 

“All due respect sir, so am I. Permission to create a team of my choosing?”

 

Phillips squinted at her, considering her request.

 

“Would you rather I do another publicity tour, sir? Perhaps a movie recreating my victories at Azzano?” Stephanie asked.

 

He shook his head, “Choose who you want. If you can wipe HYDRA off the map, then I don’t care how integrated it is.”

 

Stephanie smiled graciously at him.

 

* * *

 

She was sitting in a bar, dressed in a borrowed olive uniform. Around her were Jim Morita, Dum-Dum Dugan, Montgomery Falsworth, Gabe Jones, and Jacques Dernier.

 

“So let’s get this straight,” Dugan said.

 

“We barely got out of their alive, and you want us to go back?” Jones asked.

 

“Pretty much,” Stephanie agreed.

 

“Sounds rather fun, actually,” Falsworth said.

 

Morita belched, “I’m in.”

 

Jones and Dernier spoke French together and laughed, “We’re in,” Jones confirmed.

 

“Hell, I’ll always fight. But you gotta do one thing for me,” Dugan said.

 

“What’s that?” Stephanie asked.

 

“Open up a tab,” Dugan said. Stephanie nodded.

 

“Well, that was easy,” Morita said.

 

“Steph?” A young woman asked. Stephanie looked up. Georgia, Christine, Ruthie, Angela, and Leah were standing in the bar. Stephanie stood up and hugged them. “Are you serious?” Georgia continued. “You have a job for us in the actual Army?”

 

“I’m trying to get most of the girls actual jobs in the Army, now that the show is over. We need a communications field officer, a weapons specialist, and a field mechanic,” Stephane explained. “And Howard needs a computer and a secretary to manage his lab because that man is a mess right now. I can’t promise you’ll go on actual missions, but I can promise you’ll get to help, maybe even behind enemy lines.”

 

“I’m in,” Leah said.

  
“I am too,” Georgie agreed.

 

“For sure,” Angela nodded.

 

“Yeah,” Ruthie said.

 

“I mean, if you’re all doing it-” Christine grinned. “-then I will. Absolutely.”

 

“Boys, this is Leah Pasternak, Georgie Killough, Angela Vesely, Ruthie Whitaker, and Christine Hicks. Girls, meet Jim Morita, Dum-Dum Dugan, Montgomery Falsworth, Gabe Jones, and Jacques Dernier, ” Stephanie said. “I expect that you’ll all get along. If anyone makes you feel uncomfortable, you girls know what to do.”

 

“Wait, what does that mean?” Dugan asked.

 

Stephanie smiled at him. “I’ll go open your tab,” She said. She headed over to the bar, “Another round, please.”

 

“Where are they putting all this stuff?” The barkeeper asked. Stephanie shrugged. She sat beside Bucky at the bar counter.

 

“See? I told you,” Bucky said. “They’re all putzes.”

 

Stephanie smiled, “And what about you? You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?”

 

“Hell, no,” Bucky shook his head. “But there’s this little dame from Brooklyn who always got herself into fights. I’m following her.” He and Stephanie shared a smile. “You’re keeping the outfit though, right?” He asked.

 

Stephanie laughed, “You wish. If I ever have to fight in a skirt again, it’ll be too soon.”

 

The rowdy singing behind them died down. Stephanie looked around to see why and noticed that Peggy had walked into the bar. And she looked absolutely amazing. She was wearing a deep red dress which emphasized her curvaceous figure.

 

“You look great, Peggy,” Stephanie said. She had known Peggy for how long? A year and a half? And she had never seen her look like this. “I’d like to finally introduce you properly to my husband, Sergeant Bucky Barnes.”

 

“Ma’am,” Bucky greeted Peggy.

 

“Thank you,” Peggy said with a smile and a rather lingering gaze. Then she turned back to Stephanie. “Howard has some equipment he wants you to try. Tomorrow morning?”

 

“Sounds good,” Stephanie agreed.

 

Peggy looked over to the table where the seven members of Stephanie’s team were. They were drinking heavily and singing bawdily. “I see your top squad is prepping for duty,” she said.

 

“You don’t like music?” Bucky asked.

 

“I do, actually,” Peggy said, her eyes were not leaving Stephanie’s. Stephanie swallowed hard and tried not to pay attention to how attractive Peggy was, not when her husband was right here. “0800, Captain.”

 

“Yes, ma’am,” Stephanie nodded. Peggy left. “I wonder where she’s off to in that get-up.”

 

“Dancing, probably,” Bucky guessed.

 

“I’ve never known Peg to be the dancing type,” Stephanie shook her head.

 

“But it seems like you definitely know her,” Bucky said. Stephanie looked at him questioningly, starting to feel a little flustered.

 

“She worked on Rebirth with us,” Stephanie said. “She was our supervisor from the SSR. And we bunked together when evaluating candidates at a base in Jersey.”

 

“Does she usually look at you like that?” Bucky asked.

 

“What do you mean?” Stephanie asked.

 

His eyebrows rose. “You haven’t noticed everyone looking at you?”

 

“I spend a lot of time in the spotlight. Guess I’ve desensitized to it.”

 

“Well, let’s just say people are makin’ eyes at you, now,” Bucky said. “Of course, you’re makin’ eyes back at Carter, there.” Stephanie’s expression must have given her away. “I’m not mad. I knew sooner or later you’d find someone with a prettier mug than me-”

 

“Oh, shut up,” Stephanie said.

 

“I was worried a while back it was going to be Stark-”

 

“Howard?” Stephanie gaped. “He’s - no. Oh god, on what planet could - Howard?”

 

“Well, I mean, I knew it was going to happen someday-”

 

“What do you mean you knew?” Stephanie asked. She glanced around the bar, worried their argument was getting attention. “Hold that thought,” She grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him out of the tavern, into the alleyway. “Okay, what are you talking about?”

 

“You’re - Steph, you are compassionate, strong, beautiful, determined, clever - and you always have been. You know, and I’m just… me. I never, when we were younger, even let myself think we would ever be more than friends. And then you kissed me after your ma - and I thought it wasn’t gonna last. We got married, and I thought it wasn’t gonna last. I’m not complaining, Steph. I’m not trying to be pathetic, I just, I knew you could do better than me, even when you didn’t. And now that you look like this - and everyone else can finally see how amazing you are, well, I'm doomed, aren't I? So, you know, I knew sooner or later there was gonna be some guy - or gal, I guess - who was gonna come along and sweep you off your feet.”

  
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Stephanie sighed. “I - I jumped off a plane into a Nazi base on the slightest chance you could’ve been alive. You don’t think I love you?”

  
“Yeah, but you also saved those four-hundred something-”

 

“Yeah, well, I didn’t go there for them. I went there for you. I just ended up saving them too because I thought you’d be with them. And when I found out that you went off to that isolation ward, I went after to you, and I left them to fend for themselves. If the choice comes down to it, I’m picking you.”

  
“No you aren’t,” Bucky said. “You say you are, but you aren’t. When it comes down to me and the world, you’ll pick the world.”

 

“Look, I admit, I might have a crush on Peggy-” Stephanie began. She startled herself with that confession, “-but I love you. Why can’t you accept that?”

 

Bucky shrugged, “At least you’ve got great taste in women. She seems to have eyes for you.”

 

“Please,” Stephanie scoffed. “If she had eyes for me that she most definitely had eyes for you.”

 

“You sure about that?” Bucky asked. 

 

Stephanie thought back to the way that Peggy was looking at Bucky and the way she was looking at Stephanie. She didn't know which was stranger, that Peggy had eyes for both Stephanie and Bucky, or the fact that Stephanie didn't have a problem with that."Positive."

 

"Me?" Bucky asked.

 

She sighed and shook her head, “You’re a damn idiot, Sergeant Barnes. Follow me.”

 

She grabbed his hand and pulled him down the street, he followed her all the way to the bed-and-breakfast with a perpetual “no vacancies” sign that the SSR base was hidden under. The upper levels were where ‘guests,’ i.e., the important officers, stayed. The lower levels led to a series of tunnels beneath London. There were bomb shelters, meeting rooms, training rooms, labs, and enlisted quarters. Technically, Bucky had a bunk downstairs. However, Stephanie didn’t think anyone would care if her husband came upstairs with her. 

  
“What are we doing here?” Bucky asked as she led him into her room.

  
She unbuttoned her jacket and hung it up on the door. She kicked her heels off. Slowly and steadily, she walked to him. Her hand graced his face, curled fingers sliding across his cheekbone, down his cheek, and along his jawline. “I love you.” She whispered. “I’ve loved you since we were kids, and I’ll love you until the day I die.” As if some powerful magnetic force was between them, the pair drew closer and closer. “Let me show you,” She whispered. Their noses were now bumping slightly as they shifted, breath mingling together.

  
“Please,” Bucky rasped as if he was starving or dying of thirst. She pushed forward, closing the small space between them, and fitting her mouth against his. It was different now because she was different, he was different. But it was also much of the same. She cupped the nape of his neck with one hand and slid her second arm around his side so she could press against the small of his back. His hands gripped her waist.

  
Stephanie didn’t sleep that night. Her new and improved stamina meant that she didn’t start to get exhausted, as she always used to. Bucky didn’t seem to need a break either, and they continued to relearn each other slowly and carefully. Stephanie memorized every scar and crevice of her husband’s body, while he became familiar with her new physique, the muscles that rippled with her every movement, and the expanses of her now soft and unmarred flesh. She whispered every sweet thing to him she could think of, responsive to his every pleasure, and careful to make him feel cherished. It seemed he was doing the exact same thing to her as if he was trying to prove that he was still worthy of her presence, even though he didn’t think he was.

  
As the sun rose and the pink sky of dawn burst through the lace curtains of the window, Stephanie was lying in his arms. Her head was against his chest, her arm was through over his torso, and their legs were tangled beneath the sheets. She listened to the beat of his heat and the steady rise and fall of his every breath. 

  
“I don’t like it,” Bucky admitted.

 

“Like what?”

 

“What you went through,” Bucky said. “You were perfect already.”

 

“On the bright side,” Stephanie said. “I’m not going to get sick anymore.”

 

“And yet you still find a way to flirt with death,” Bucky said.

 

“Well, I can’t let life get boring,” Stephanie said.

 

"I'm serious," Bucky said. "I know they did it to save your life. I'm glad you're alive. But I don't want you thinking that you're any better now than you were when you were Stephanie, the secretary."

 

"As opposed to Stephanie, the soldier?" Stephanie asked. "Buck, I'm glad to fight."

 

"You have a death wish?"

 

"You've seen what they're doing," Stephanie said. "We knew what they were doing before the war started - the camps and the experiments. If I can stop that, I'm gonna do whatever I can, and if with this body it means fighting, then I'm gonna fight like hell. But I also love you so much I jumped into a HYDRA base for you. So, Buck, if you want to leave, if you want to run away and live on an island until we're old and grey, I'll do it for you."

 

"You're too righteous for your own good," Bucky said. "No - I want to help. Alright? I do. I just... I didn't want you to help too."

 

"Why?"

 

"Because I want you to be safe."

 

"I've gotten shot more in New York than I've gotten shot in Europe," Stephanie said. "If you're fighting, then so am I. I'm with you 'til the end of the line, and I'm gonna be right with you all the way."

 

“I love you,” He told her. “I’m sorry about last night. I haven’t been myself… It’s been hard.”

 

“I know,” Stephanie agreed. “It’s okay if it’s hard. I’m here to help make it easier.” She leaned across the bed and kissed him. “Never doubt how much I love you, James Buchanan Barnes.”

 

“I’ll do my best, Captain,” He replied.

 

* * *

 

“Did you enjoy yourself last night?” Peggy asked conversationally as she greeted Stephanie outside Howard’s workshop.

  
“Ugh, are the walls here that thin?” Stephanie sighed.

 

“Actually, all the walls here are reinforced with steel and brick. I was referring to your night at the tavern with your new team,” Peggy raised an eyebrow and gave a knowing smile, “Are you referring to something else?”

 

Stephanie could feel herself turn crimson. She tried to shrug it off, but Peggy knew.

 

“Glad to know all is well in the marriage,” Peggy said. “I had incorrectly assumed your husband would’ve had issues with being commanded by his own wife.”

 

“Honestly I think it’s a turn-on for him,” Stephanie said offhandedly, trying to joke to diffuse tension. She then started to panic because there was definitely still tension, “I am so sorry, I have no idea why I keep-”

 

Peggy continued on, quelling Stephanie’s panicked rambling. “I would recommend perhaps using terms of rank to establish a certain power relationship in a private moment, but I worry that there may be a Pavlovian response during an actual mission,” she said. “Of course, with a husband like yours, I’m sure you won’t run out of ideas anytime soon.” Then she smiled and winked.

 

Stephanie couldn’t make words. She physically could not speak. She tried to say something, and all that came out was a weak, crackling sound from her mouth. She closed her mouth abruptly and stared at Peggy with wide eyes. “Okay, thanks,” She managed. “Can I see Howard now?”

 

“Yes,” Peggy nodded. Stephanie rigidly marched into the lab.

 

“Hiya, Stephanie. Great girls, you brought in. And they’re both absolutely not interested in me at all, great for my work ethic."

 

"Yeah, you should hire more lesbians," Stephanie advised quietly.

 

Howard nodded and continued his rant, "Exciting things happened before you showed up. I ran the tube of drugs being pumped in your husband, mostly sedatives. These power sources you stole are incredibly efficient, with neutral alpha and beta, high levels of gamma, and not to mention seemingly limitless. Power. Infinite power, imagine what we could to with that."

 

“Good, glad they’re entertaining,” Stephanie said.

 

“You alright, there?” He asked. “You look tense.”

 

“I am incredibly tense,” Stephanie agreed.

 

“Want to talk about it?” Howard asked.

 

“Off the record, unprofessionally, as friends?” Stephanie asked.

 

“Absolutely,” Howard nodded.

 

“Um, well, can people - do people - interact in - with someone outside the partnership of marriage?"

 

“Are you talking about affairs?”

 

“No - not - there’s no lying. It’s like that but… together.” Stephanie interlinked her fingers to emphasize the ‘together’ part.

 

“Oh,” Howard said, nodding. “Well, Steph, I’m flattered-”

 

“What?” Stephanie asked. “Not you - I - we’re friends. You’re like my brother.”

 

“You’re like my kid sister,” Howard agreed. “Although, if it meant getting to know Sergeant Barnes a little better-”

 

“Ugh, you are such a whore,” Stephanie sighed.

 

“Yes, people do what you’re referring to. I’ve been in several,” Howard said. “Some people do it for the experience. Others actually develop a relationship with more than two people, although that’s a bit rarer. Of course, anyone in their right mind would proposition Captain and Sergeant Barnes,” Howard said. “Want to get to work now?”

 

“Please,” Stephanie said.

 

“For your suit, I’m going to use this carbon polymer. Should withstand your average German bayonet. Although Hydra’s not going to attack you with a pocket knife. And I’m adapting your harness prototype, it seemed to be effective. Any suggestions?”

 

“I came up with some designs,” Stephanie said, handing him a set of sketches she had made. “It’s an adaptation of my USO outfit, but more tactical and with trousers. I was thinking you could put some plating or perhaps thicker layers of this polymer in the stripes of the bodice - couldn’t hurt more than boning, and I danced in that.”

 

“Consider it done,” Howard nodded. “Now, as for the shield you retrofitted. I heard you’re attached.”

 

“It reminded me of Athena, the goddess of war,” Stephanie shrugged. “For the WAC, she’s our symbol. And it was very effective in the field.”

 

“Well, I took the liberty of coming up with some options,” Howard said, indicating to a collection of shields. Stephanie wasn’t impressed, they were all typically Howard. “This one’s fun, she’s been fitted with electrical relays.” Stephanie's eyes skipped over the shields and down to a plain silver disk in a box. “It’ll allow you to-”

 

“What about her?” Stephanie asked, lifting the silver disk. It was much lighter than she expected, as it was made out of pure metal.

 

“No - no!” Howard said. “That’s just a prototype.”

 

“What’s it made of?” Stephanie asked.

 

“Vibranium. It’s stronger than steel and a third of the weight. It’s completely vibration absorbent. I considered using it for the pod in Utero, but it’s so rare. What you’re holding there is all I managed to get my hands on.”

 

“I like it,” She admitted. “It’s not ostentatious.”

 

“Excuse you,” Howard said. “These took hours-”

 

“You and I both know you overdesign,” Stephanie said. “I don’t need a shield which doubles as a small tank.”

 

“But wouldn’t it be fun?” Howard asked. “Fine, no more modifications. But at least let me give it a paint job to match the uniform.”

 

“You may,” Stephanie said. “Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

 

“My pleasure, Captain Barnes.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to those who have been reading.
> 
> As always, your feedback in its many forms is appreciated, especially comments. Did you like Stephanie and Bucky's reunion? And what are your thoughts on the new makeup of the Howling Commandos? 
> 
> Until the next chapter!


	8. Mission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you in the United States, Happy Thanksgiving!
> 
> I am thankful for all of my readers and their kind feedback.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this next chapter!

 

It was the night before Stephanie’s first official mission as Captain America. She spent the early evening with Howard, who was putting the final touches on the equipment she would use.

 

“And the suit feels alright? No pinching?” Howard asked. “I could remeasure the bodice-”

 

“You’ve measured my bodice plenty,” Stephanie snapped half-heartedly. “It’s fine, Howard. Now, how much ammo can I fit on this harness?”

 

“You’ll have one pistol on either thigh, a knife at your hip, twelve full clips on your belt, another eight on the suspenders of your harness, the shield goes on the back, and that’s it so far,” Howard explained. “And I have one last present for you.” He walked over to the far end of his workshop and lifted a tarp to reveal a Harley Davidson motorcycle. “I remembered the motorcycle from your USO show, and I thought you’d appreciate it.”

 

“How many gadgets?” Stephanie asked.

 

“Probably around thirty,” Howard admitted. “But it’s fully functional. Peggy’s been testing it for me.”

 

“You’ve been using Agent Carter as a crash dummy?” Stephanie asked.

 

“Hey - she volunteered,” Howard defended himself. “You can ride a motorcycle, right?”

 

“I could ride the one we used for the show,” Stephanie said.

 

“Okay, great,” Howard said. “I don’t exactly remember everything it does.”

 

“You forgot your own gadgets?” Stephanie asked.

 

He shrugged.

 

“You have to learn how to function as a human,” Stephanie told him. “I’m not your mother, Howard.”

 

“I can function,” He said indignantly. Stephanie rolled her eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

The night before they would fly to Greece to take out the first main Hydra base and its nearby depots and camps, they went to the local pub. It had become a habit of the group to come here, especially when they had a long day of training. They would use the warehouse-like rooms of the SSR base to practice combat maneuvers, codes, hand signals, and Howard’s weapons. Today, they were having one last moment of peace before they headed into death. They watched their drinks more than usual, nobody wanted to be nursing a headache on a plane. The only person who didn’t really have to worry was Stephanie. She metabolized her alcohol so quickly now that it didn’t matter how much she drank, she never started to feel anything.

 

“I love this song!” Georgie cried as the pianist started some jaunty tune. The girls would be going with them and would take up shack at the base they would be operating out of in Italy. Stephanie was still the only woman in the WAC who was approved for field operations, even though she was trying to push the envelope as much as she could with Georgia and Leah. “Oh, could one of you boys dance with me?”

 

Gabe and Falsworth offered Georgia to dance with her. Leah begrudgingly danced with Falsworth so Gabe could spin Georgia around the center of the pub floor to the music. Soon Dugan was dancing with Christine, Morita with Angela, and Dernier with Ruthie. She watched them dance for a while with a slightly wistful expression. She almost missed dancing, even though she had been sick of it a few months before with the USO tour. As the song ended, Stephanie felt Bucky rest a hand on her knee. She looked up at him. He jerked his head toward the dance floor, and she nodded, trying to seem slightly less eager to dance.

 

“Captain America is gonna teach us all how to swing dance,” Dugan joked.

“The girl barely needed lessons,” Leah said. “She’s got rhythm.”

 

The music started up, quick and bouncy. Stephanie and Bucky bounced along to the rhythm, shuffling and skipping their feet in time with the melody. Bucky would push Stephanie away, so they were no longer embracing, she would shuffle and tap her feet, and then he would pull her back and spin her around a few times, before tossing her out again to do something fun. One time it was a split, another time she tapped her heels so quickly they were sixteenth notes on the beat.

 

Then they changed. She would toss him out of the embrace, and he would tap, shuffle, skip or kick before she would pull him in and they would continue to spin together. Instead of twirling with her when he pulled her back, Bucky sometimes held onto her waist and swung her around his back. Her legs went up in the air, and over his head, she landed at his feet in a split before he pulled her up, and they continued to spin across the floor. 

 

She’d pull him around, so their backs were pressed together, and she’d fold forward so he would roll off her back to face her. He would do the same to her. She would hold onto his neck and let her legs go out from under her, swinging her legs around his hips and then pushing off. With their combined effort of the dip, he held her hips up into the air, and she pointed her toes to the ceiling as her skirt slipped and bunched around her thighs. She dropped back to her feet, and they continued this shuffling with the occasional maneuver or dramatic twirl. The song finished with a peppy end, and they broke away from the dance floor with heavy breaths.

 

“Save some energy for the war, why don’t you two?” Dugan joked.

 

“I could go all night,” Stephanie grinned.

 

* * *

 

 

Thus, a pattern was established. Every night before a critical mission, they would go dancing. They spent two weeks in Greece, taking out seven small camps or depots and the one main base. They would charge in with guns blazing, Stephanie would be at the head of the squad, crouched with her shield raised to deflect any incoming bullets. After the base had either surrendered, fled, or died, they would bring in their backup. Squads from the SSR would collect all the equipment and experiments that were being used. Scientists who surrendered were taken to be questioned about the technology they were developing for Schmidt.

The night before they went back to Europe for a mission in Northern France, Stephanie broke a heel dancing. The next week, she broke several faces as she bashed people’s heads in with her shield, being able to get close enough to the men with strange HYDRA weapons to make them suffer. The day before they blew up a warehouse in Belgium, Stephanie taught Dernier how to do the Charleston. They camped along a HYDRA transportation convoy in Czechoslovakia for several days, and the only injury anyone in the group sustained was when Dugan tried to toss Georgie the night preceding their mission.

Stephanie wasn’t sure what bonded her to the group more. Was it the nights camped out in the European winter, fighting for their lives. Or was it the evenings in the warm pub in London when they talked and laughed and danced the night away, even if the sirens blared? Regardless of what it was, no team in the army was a more cohesive group. Morita, Dugan, and Gabe were some of the best soldiers Stephanie could ask to lead. They were sharp on their feet and followed orders well. Dernier was an explosives specialist, and Falsworth was a paratrooper and was extremely self-disciplined. Leah was their communications officer who could turn most things into a communicator and managed to keep track of thirteen different codes, SSR and HYDRA, at all times. Georgie was the team mechanic, able to get most vehicles to work when they needed a quick escape. Ruthie was an expert in weapons, she knew how to disassemble, clean, and repair all of their equipment. While the girls weren't approved to infiltration missions, they often got caught up in some maneuver when the team trekked between depots and bases, and the team always held its own.

By early 1944, they had reached three of the six main HYDRA bases and a dozen camps, convoys, and depots. Around this time was when Senator Brandt decided he wanted to televise their missions. He had a long list of reasons why seeing them in action would inspire hope for the people at home, and how Captain America was an icon, and they wanted to know what she was up to. Ultimately, that meant that they were accompanied by two video documentarians at all times - or at least when Phillips couldn’t shake Brandt off for a particularly confidential mission. These men would carry cameras will them and bags with nothing in them but rolls on rolls of film. The good thing about these men, at least, was that they were professional. They knew that this was a war zone and that they were following soldiers. When Stephanie said it was too dangerous, they decided to scout somewhere for decent wide shots of the resulting explosions. They rarely interrupted the mission for something annoying like interviews, and when they did, it was because they actually had legitimate questions about what the purpose of the operation was and what Stephanie’s plan was going to be.

When the adventures of Captain America and her Howling Commandos started to grace the newsreels at cinemas across the Allied Powers, a flood of letters began coming to Stephanie and the cinematographers. Some of it was annoying, people criticizing her for being a woman, or questions that were inappropriate. Some of it, she just accepted begrudgingly, like questions about her personal life or how she got bloodstains out of her suit. However, Stephanie appreciated most of it. People telling her that she was inspiring them, women especially who saw Captain America as the face of female empowerment. She’s out there, leading an integrated team against the Nazis, and she’s a woman.

The posters of a smiling First Officer America in a skirt, blowing kisses at the viewer or reclining on a motorcycle, they were no longer in circulation. Captain America posters were now her standing with her chin high and her shield out, looking above the viewer, as the American flag was rippling behind her. It was an artistic recreation of shots from the documentaries. Stephanie leaping through the air, or being bent with the sheer force of a punch she slung into a man’s face. The slogans surrounding her changed as well. Gone were “The Girl With The Star-Spangled Heart” or “First Officer America Needs Your Help” slogans. The image of her standing before the flag was titled “Join the Women’s Army Corps Today” Pictures of her in action said, “America is Fighting Back.” Of course, there was some backlash from the power that she was exerting in the public eye. There were political cartoons of her being subjugated by Nazis and rescued by American soldiers, of her body being drawn disproportionately to emphasize her breasts, of her flirting with the men on her battalion. There were criticisms and conspiracy theories that all of the Captain America newsreels were just political ploys to ensure complacency and support of the war effort that it was all done on a set somewhere and the people she fought were all washed-up actors. That became a bit of an inside joke for the Howling Commandos. Whenever it was time for them to go on a mission, they called it “heading to set.” Ruthie called their equipment “the props.” Sometimes, after a harrowing battle, Dugan would joke “the extras were passionate today,” and they would all laugh of the terror of almost dying again. Stephanie was “The Heroine,” and Bucky was “The Love Interest.” In reality, however, things were a bit more complicated than the romantic simplicity they alluded to.

 

It felt like there were now three people in their relationship. Stephanie, Bucky, and Peggy. Peggy was an agent of the SSR stationed to the base that Stephanie and the Commandos worked out of, so they often saw each other.

Stephanie and Bucky kept sex between the two of them. The slow, deliberate lovemaking after they were reunited was rare. Often, when they did find themselves together, it was because emotions were running high and hot. It was a combination of fear, stress, desperation, and anger for someone having been in danger. Bucky nearly lost hand-to-knife combat with a HYDRA soldier, and Stephanie scolded him for being reckless before they found themselves misbehaving in a closet. Bucky had to snipe another sharpshooter when Stephanie didn’t check her full surroundings, and after he complained to her about it, they disregarded their scouting duties against a tree. War seemed to be the catalyst whenever they found themselves together in such a way. It was always hot and heavy, forcing bruises and bite marks into the other’s flesh as if to punish them for risking their lives.

However, Peggy was emotionally the third person in their relationship. After her odd comment the morning after meeting Bucky, she quickly went back to her old ways of being Stephanie’s close friend. Which was slightly tortuous, because after Bucky told Stephanie that Peggy was making eyes at her, Stephanie couldn’t help but notice whenever Peggy was making eyes at her. And it made her chest constrict, and her mouth dried up. Stephanie thought Bucky would become jealous and resentful of Peggy like he had been of Howard, but it was the complete opposite. If anything, those two were thick as thieves. It made sense, rationally. Stephanie and Peggy got along well because they liked the same things, had similar outlooks on life, and same senses of humor. Stephanie and Bucky got along well because they wanted the same things, had similar perspectives on life, and the same sense of humor. Therefore, Peggy and Bucky were also compatible. 

It wasn't just Stephanie who Peggy was making eyes at. Stephanie was acutely aware of the fact that Peggy also had eyes for Bucky, and that somehow, Stephanie didn't mind. Stephanie didn't mind either that it seemed Bucky sometimes made eyes at Peggy. When Stephanie first noticed, she was shocked that her blood didn't run cold, but rather a warm, sated feeling spread through her chest, and there was a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Stephanie then had a shattering realization one night that she, Bucky and Peggy were practically a couple. The best way to describe the sensation of this realization was satisfying. As if she had finally solved the complex jigsaw puzzle that had been lying unfinished in her mind for weeks. When she told Bucky, he was surprised, but he didn’t disagree with her. Neither of them knew what to do. Howard - who was not very informed on what was going on - recommended having an honest discussion between the three of them. It was far more reasonable advice than Stephanie could have ever anticipated from him. However, Bucky immediately disregarded what Stark thought, regardless of how rational it was.

So they didn’t say anything, and they didn’t do anything. But there was always a romantic tension in their every, friendly interaction. They were making eyes at each other but never addressing it. Stephanie believed that Bucky was thinking of Peggy a little bit, she was sure that Peggy was thinking about her and Bucky, and she was most definitely finding Peggy on her mind when she had the luxury of wandering thoughts. They would get along well, probably flirt sometimes too, and the three of them really did seem to be close friends. But there was always something more to their interactions, something that was repressed and denied between the three of them, the unspoken thing. The unspoken thing sometimes had glimmers of existence, like Peggy’s lingering hugs when Stephanie and Bucky returned from a mission. It was when a dirty joke that usually elicited boisterous laughter instead resulted in weak chuckles and deep blushes. The unspoken thing was always lurking when the three of them interacted in any permutation, and still left them mulling in thought afterward. However, it remained unspoken.

 

The dancing and romantic confusion made 1944 a long year, and the war certainly made it longer. In early March, Stephanie had to track a series of HYDRA agents through London as they had decided to attack the SSR base and steal essential documents during an air raid. They decided to hold an entire bomb shelter hostage. Stephanie snuck into the bomb shelter, pretending to be a housewife, and managed to rally the civilians and drag the HYDRA agents and the stolen documents out, of course, the HYDRA agents quickly succumbed to their own cyanide. April was a rough month for Howard, and he never told Stephanie exactly why. As far as she could tell, there was some sort of malfunction with equipment of his on the Eastern European front, and there were considerable casualties. She didn’t know the extent, and she reminded herself to look up what happened in Finow when she got the chance, she was currently occupied with the attack on a Danish stronghold to destroy some odd device they were using there. In May, Stephanie broke into a HYDRA Submarine and took command before they could use their specially powered torpedoes. Peggy vanished for most of June, off on an espionage mission for the SSR. Stephanie was too busy to question it, with her and the Commandos joining Operation Overlord and landing at Normandy to launch an assault in Northern France and push back the Western front. With Captain America on the battlefield, deflecting bullets, not missing a single target with one of her two pistols, and taking down entire tanks by herself, there was an absolute surrender and a roaring victory on the beaches of France. She continued to lead the push on the Western Front, the Howling Commandos and her would scout out any HYDRA bases, camps, depots, or convoys weeks before most soldiers reached those places, being sure to deal with the advanced technology when they could because they were the best equipped. She even got to see Paris, which was certainly not as pretty as it used to be.

 

January of 1945 had their best victory yet, in Stalingrad. HYDRA troops pinned down a battalion of allied soldiers due to a blizzard in the area. No large regiment could break away from their positions to help this battalion. Stephanie made the executive decision to take the Howling Commandos to Stalingrad to rescue the force. There were hundreds of HYDRA and Nazi soldiers that had somehow joined together to trap the battalion. With topographical maps, the stealthy take-over of the artillery vehicles and radio communications, the weather conditions, and a lot of luck, Stephanie and the Commandos managed to get most of HYDRA to drive off a cliff, rescuing well over a thousand soldiers.

 

Everything would have been going wonderfully if Stephanie wasn’t starting to get nervous that the serum was wearing off. It had started back in mid-December of ‘44. Stephanie was starting to feel a little bit tired. It sounded entirely out of proportion. But she could stay on her feet for hours, fighting Nazis, destroying tanks, breaking into buildings. She would fight for hours, and when the rest of the team dropped onto the ground with exhaustion, she barely felt tired. So, suddenly, her energy was starting to go. She craved sleep more than ever. She wrote it off as the effects of the war, the exhaustion of fighting with limited reprieve for a year. However, not long after she realized she was getting tired, she realized that her stomach wasn’t feeling right. Usually, her appetite was voracious. She ate twice as much as anyone in the Howling Commandos. Gradually, food was a source of discomfort. Her stomach would churn if it were too full, and she was reminded of the horrendous pain and nausea from her recurrent stomach ulcers. She was starting to feel sore again, as well, which made her fear for a return of her chronic pain. 

All of it was terrifying, she didn’t want to have the serum wear off. She still had work to do. HYDRA was always her primary concern, and if she became too weak to fight, her squadron wouldn’t go home with her. They needed her to lead them so she couldn’t let anyone know she was becoming ill again. Not even her husband. And she did want to tell him, she tried to confess to him, to have him assure her all would be fine. But this was war, and she had to be strong because she wasn’t just his wife. She was also his superior officer, and that meant that if her weakness could compromise his effectiveness, she knew it wasn’t worth it. She had to focus on the mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> As always, all of your comments, kudos, bookmarks, subscriptions, and forms of feedback are appreciated. I hope you guys liked how I handled transitioning from 1943 to 1945 in time for the climax of this story.
> 
> Until the next chapter! :)


	9. Loss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for all of your lovely comments and other forms of feedback!
> 
> This chapter is probably one of the angstier things I've written, so be forewarned. You can probably guess what's going to happen.

Stephanie was standing on a rocky cliff face in the Alps. Behind her, the Howling Commandos had built a zip line above the mountain pass and the train line that HYDRA used. They had apprehended a HYDRA communications device and were using their signals and a broken code to determine when the train would be passing through. Not only did they want to stop the supplies, but they also wanted to find out where Schmidt’s main base was. Stephanie’s helmet was tucked under one arm, and she watched the mountain pass through the gentle snow. They would have to zip down the line immediately when they saw it coming.

“Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone at Coney Island?” Bucky asked beside her as he watched the tracks with her.

“Yeah, and I threw up?” Stephanie asked.

“This isn’t payback, is it?” Bucky asked.

Stephanie looked up at the zip line above their heads, “Now why would I do that?” She asked him, smiling.

“We were right,” Leah called, having decoded messages from the radio she was manning. “Dr. Zola’s on the train.  HYDRA dispatcher permitted him to open up the throttle. Wherever he’s going, they must need him something awful and soon.”

Stephanie nodded to them and put her helmet on, the rest of the men also finished gearing up just as the train came into view.

“Let’s get going because they’re moving like the devil,” Falsworth urged.

“We only got about a ten-second window,” Stephanie said, looking at the zip line and the train heading toward them. The outcomes at certain points in time materialized in her mind as she clipped her handlebars to the zip line. “You miss that window - we’re bugs on a windshield.”

“Better get moving, bugs!” Dugan roared. They all equipped their handlebars behind her. The train got into the position Stephanie was waiting for, and she launched off of the cliff, tucking her legs into her chest to maintain her speed as she flew down the zip line. She dropped onto all fours on the roof of the train and felt the clunks of Bucky, Gabe, Morita, and Dugan behind her. She and Bucky went down the ladder and into the car they landed on, Morita stood guard, while Gabe and Dugan kept moving above the train. They found themselves in some storage room, with shelves in the middle full of dark containers, likely of weapons. Stephanie took the left side, and Bucky took the right. They headed through the car on either side of the shelf, but the train was eerily empty. The door to the next car was wide open. Stephanie went forward first, to continue their progression to the front of the train. 

As she passed the threshold into the next carriage, the doors between them slammed shut, with Bucky on the other side. She hurried to the door to see what was going on and saw her husband get ambushed by a HYDRA soldier. She knew that he probably wasn’t the only one with some company. She whipped around in time to see the footfall of a HYDRA man with two large energy cannons, one on either arm. She shot at his chest, but it seemed that he had protection, because he barely stumbled back before launching a blast in her direction. She dodged. After his attack, there was a deep whirring sound as his cannons recharged. Stephanie glanced up at the ceiling and saw a hook on a track above her that was likely used for moving crates. She shot at him again and let him take a blast at her. As his cannons recharged, she leaped into the air, grabbed the hook, and swung on the track, knocking him down with her sheer force and her shield. Once he was on the ground, she kicked his helmet off and shot him.

She could hear Bucky struggling to take down the HYDRA on his side. He had managed to take down one of the two soldiers, but his rifle was now empty as he was using his pistol, and there was still another man. She aimed the pulse cannon at the door and managed to reach the corridor between the carriages. Bucky was running out of ammunition on his pistol. This is why she always came prepared. She broke the control panel to open the door and caught his eye. He nodded, and she tossed him her second pistol. She charged into the room, knocking over a shelf and distracting the soldier so Bucky could take him down with one shot.

“I had him on the ropes,” Bucky said, panting.

“I know you did,” Stephanie said. If they kept their old patterns, a high-stress mission like today would result in them breaking something when the found some privacy.

 

Then, there was the explosion. It seemed as if there were charges planted in the corridors. The force of the blast sent both Stephanie and Bucky flying backward, as the metal of the train car peeled back with the bombing. The carriage they were in was no longer attached to the train. Furthermore, the explosion had knocked the train off the tracks, and the open, charred end of the car tipped over the side of the cliff until it was vertically suspended in the air, only holding on from the weight of the later carriages and the caboose. As the car dropped over the edge of the cliff, the containers slid and fell out of the train. Stephanie and Bucky started to fall out of the train as well. Stephanie managed to grab the bottom of one of the support columns on the sides of the train and plant her feet in the internal slats. Bucky, however, couldn’t grab hold of anything until had nearly entirely fallen out of the carriage. He was holding onto a cable for dear life, swinging above the white abyss.

“Hang on!” Stephanie called down to him. She started to look at the different ways she could safely get down there. What she really needed was a grappling hook. She supposed, if she could make the jump to a lower support column, she could work her way down the side of the train. But even then, how would she get back up again with Bucky? She slipped her shield onto the back of her harness, and she pushed off of the wall, jumping to the other side, but a lower column. The train rocked with the force of her push, and Bucky held onto the cable for dear life as he drifted back and forth above the drop. Stephanie tried to do the same jump again, this time more delicately. She landed. She looked down. One more drop and she might be able to reach him. She took a deep breath and pushed, soaring through the air, and holding onto the column for dear life when she hit it. Bucky was below and to the left of her, and if she could just let go with one hand and extend it, he might be able to reach her.

“Grab my hand!” She called.

“How do I get over there?” Bucky asked as she offered her hand to him.

“Swing!” Stephanie suggested.

He sighed, and then he started to draw his legs back and forth, swinging the cable closer and closer to the support column she was hanging onto. With each swing, her hope grew, as she was sure he would be able to swing wide enough to bridge the gap. She believed he felt ready too, as he was at the crest of his swing, he let go and reached toward her. He arched through the air, and she felt his fingers reach hers. However, as he soared through the air, her hope quickly faded to a hard feeling in the pit of her stomach as she realized he was not going to go far enough. Sure enough, their hands touched, and then he fell. He slipped right through her fingers.

“No!” She exclaimed as she felt him be pulled away from her. She watched him fall. The terrified expression on his face as he realized she could not save him. He became smaller and smaller, surrounded by white until he was gone.

 

* * *

 

Dugan, Morita, and Gabe had managed to continue on the mission after the train explosion. They had apprehended Zola. When the SSR picked Stephanie up, they quickly realized that Sergeant Barnes was nowhere to be found. On the flight back to London, Stephanie sat alone. She kept playing with a simple chain, on it was his wedding ring and hers. They didn’t wear them on missions. This was all she had left of her husband, a gold band. Suddenly, she could no longer look at them. She had to stuff them in her pack and hold herself, rocking in the plane seat and fighting tears. She knew that she wasn’t the only person to lose someone. Georgie was on the plane, and Stephanie had been the one to deliver the telegram. But there was something she couldn’t wipe from her mind, his  _ expression _ . In all her life, she had never seen Bucky look that scared. And that’s how he died, he had died terrified. He had died watching her realize her fate and lose all hope. Now, he was gone. They said they would comb the mountain pass in case he had survived, but she knew he wouldn’t have been able to survive that fall. She doubted  _ she _ could survive that fall.

When they returned to London, the main SSR base was on lockdown, as there had been a massive bombing in the area. The small tavern that she and the Commandos frequented was one of the many buildings that had fallen victim to the decimation. The debriefing was lengthy and far too delicate. Nobody wanted to talk to Stephanie, or especially mention the casualties. Instead, they were trying to be optimistic. They had Dr. Zola, several new batches of Hydra armaments, and a likely lead to Schmidt’s main base. Stephanie hated hearing the hope, she hated the hope. She had no hope. Whatever spirit she had inside her, whatever desire to fight she had, all of her hope for the future, it had all fallen to its death in a mountain pass. Now she was empty. No, not empty, enraged.

She left the debriefing meeting in the middle of Phillips’ speaking. She did not care it was rude. She needed to get out. She needed fresh air. She needed alcohol.

She found herself in the smoking ruins of their favorite tavern. As if the universe knew that everything good in her life was destroyed, they eradicated the very symbols of it. She pulled all the alcohol she could off the shelves, turned on the battered radio behind the bar, sat down at the only intact table, and listened to the music. The whiskey burned, but she seemed to turn it into water by the time it reached her stomach because nothing abated. Not her pain, not the memories. Not his face. She had always been proud of her ability to remember every facet what she saw. Now, she wanted to forget more than ever before.

Quietly, Peggy Carter entered the ruins of the drinking establishment. She looked at Stephanie with a sincerely sympathetic expression, “I thought you might be here,” she said gently.

“Dr. Erskine said that-” She paused to swallow back tears “-the serum wouldn’t just affect my muscles, it would affect all of my cells. Create a protective system of regeneration and healing. Change the way my liver processes chemicals like glucose, glycogen, and alcohol. Which means I can’t get drunk. Did you know that?”

“Your metabolism burns four times faster than the average person. He thought it could be one of the side effects,” Peggy said. “I thought you knew that.”

“I did,” Stephanie said. “I just hoped, it would wear off too. With the rest of it.”

“I’m sorry?” Peggy asked.

“It’s wearing off. The serum,” Stephanie explained. “I don’t know why, but I know it is. I can feel nausea, the pain, and the exhaustion return.”

Peggy tried to address Stephanie’s confession logically, “Sometimes, grief-”

“It’s been happening for weeks, Peggy,” Stephanie said. “But I was always - I cared about the mission. Now… now I don't care about any of it.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Stephanie,” Peggy said.

“Did you read the reports?” Stephanie asked.

“Yes,” Peggy said.

“Then you know that’s not true,” Stephanie replied.

“You did everything you could,” Peggy said.

“I know,” Stephanie sighed. “All I’ve done, and I’m still not enough to protect the people I love.”

“Did you respect your husband? Did you believe in him?” Peggy asked. Stephanie looked up at Peggy, her expression clearly illustrating affirmation. “Then stop blaming yourself. Allow James the dignity of his choice. He damn well must have thought you were worth it.”

Stephanie sobbed. That’s precisely why it hurt so much. Because he followed her into war, and he was with her, and that was the end of the line. And he was gone, and she was still here, without him.

“I’m going to make them regret it,” Stephanie said, her voice was far calmer than she expected it to be. “I’m going to make sure I see the fear on Schmidt’s face. I’m going to make all of them regret every single life they took. The civilians here in London, those across Europe, the brave young men who tried to help, the people who starved to death working, or in experiments, or in firing lines - and Bucky.”

“You won’t be alone,” Peggy said, setting her hand atop Stephanie’s. Stephanie was too bereaved to even wonder about the unspoken thing. She didn’t think of the future, because she had no hope for the future anymore. Her fate was without hope. The only two things she could see ahead of her were revenge and death.

 

* * *

 

“Johann Schmidt belongs in a bug house. He thinks he’s a God. He’s willing to blow up half the world to prove it, starting with the USA,” Phillips explained as they resumed the debrief. Stephanie had wiped away her tears and gotten back to work.

“Schmidt’s working with powers beyond our capabilities. He gets across the Atlantic, he will wipe out the entire eastern seaboard in an hour,” Howard said. “That’s millions of people.”

 

“How much time we got?” Jones asked.

“According to my new best friend, under twenty-four hours,” Phillips replied.

“Where is he now?” Dernier inquired.

“HYDRA’s last base,” Phillips explained. “In the Alps. Five hundred feet below the surface.”

“So, what are we supposed to do? I mean, it’s not like we can just knock on the front door,” Morita said.

“Why not?” Stephanie asked. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do. Captain America was made to be a distraction.”

“What exactly is your plan?” Phillips explained.

“I make a mess, take out as many as I can, and then surrender. Schmidt will want to see me, and in the time it takes for all to happen, you will have moved into position.”

“He’ll kill you if you give him a chance,” Phillips warned.

“I’m fine with that as I get to take him with me,” Stephanie replied.

 

* * *

 

“I know impulsivity and recklessness have always been vices of yours, but this new trend is concerning,” Peggy said to Stephanie. Stephanie was trying to go up to her room to sleep the night before they went to defeat HYDRA. Peggy had other plans, it seemed.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Stephanie said.

“James wouldn’t have wanted this,” Peggy replied.

Stephanie turned around, emotions flaring inside her. She didn’t know if she was angry or sad, but her expression of conflicting emotions must have been pitiful, because of the sympathy on Peggy’s face. “He’s not around to want anything anymore,” Stephanie said. “It’s just me now.”

“You're not alone, Stephanie,” Peggy said. “You’re surrounded by people who love you and care about you and want to help you.”

Stephanie looked away, fighting tears this time, “I know,” She admitted. “I don’t care.”

Peggy nodded, “He was your man, wasn’t he?”

“He was... my hope,” Stephanie admitted, turning back around. “He was my heart and my soul. He was my best friend and my first love. I’m sorry. I know I’m on a self-destructive path of destruction, I know. But I’m not strong enough to live in a world that doesn’t have him in it.” 

“And you've never felt that way, you'll never _feel_ that way for someone else?” Peggy asked. That was it. The unspoken thing.

“I could’ve if he didn’t go,” Stephanie admitted. She was now crying freely now, and she felt her nose bubble as she choked between sentences. “We could’ve. But - but now I see nothing. He - he promised me when my m-mother died, he said ‘I’m with you until the end of the line.’ Now - now, he’s no longer with me. And the line, Peggy, I see the end of the line. This all started because I needed to be with him again. And it’s how it’s gonna end.”

“And what about the people’s you’re leaving behind?” Peggy asked. Her calm facade was betrayed by a single tear.

“I’m too broken not to be selfish,” Stephanie admitted. “I’m sorry. I’m not a saint.”

“You are far more than you give yourself credit for,” Peggy said. “Good luck tomorrow.” She began to head down the hall.

“Wait,” Stephanie said. “I’m sorry, Peggy. I know this isn’t fair to you.”

“I was always the odd one out,” Peggy said. “I’ve accepted it.”

“You weren’t out,” Stephanie said. “You were with us. We hadn’t gotten close to figuring it out, but you were with us.”

“I wish we had more time,” Peggy said.

“So do I,” Stephanie agreed. “I don’t think I can be alone tonight.”

Peggy looked at Stephanie and the door to her room and gave her a firm nod.

Stephanie and Peggy didn’t sleep. They found themselves in the bed together, side by side, not speaking nor moving, but both felt that there was an empty space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was tragic. What do you guys think? Did I get any of you to cry real tears (because I cried when I first wrote this chapter)?
> 
> As always, your many forms of feedback are appreciated and comments especially.
> 
> The next chapter will conclude the events of CA:TFA, so I hope you're looking forward to it as much as I am.


	10. Sacrifice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter following the events of Captain America: The First Avenger
> 
> A massive thank-you to everyone who has been reading, subscribing, bookmarking, giving kudos, and especially commenting. Your constant feedback has been a source of inspiration for me.
> 
> Without further ado, the chapter.

 

 

The morning before Stephanie boarded the plane to the Alps, she went to see Howard.

 

“Stephanie,” He stood up from his work, “I am so sorry-”

 

“Don’t,” Stephanie said. “Don’t make me cry.”

 

He nodded, “I know that you don’t have any hope for the future, but if you - when you come home, know that there will always be a place for you at Stark Industries.”

 

“Thank you, Howard,” Stephanie said. “You’ve been a good friend.” She hugged him.

 

“Hey, Stephanie, this isn’t goodbye,” He said. “Right?”

 

She smiled sadly at him, “Do me a favor if I don’t come back, be there for Peggy. I want to know that there’s hope for the people I’d be leaving behind.”

 

Howard nodded, “It’s been an honor, Captain.”

 

She saluted him, and then she left.

 

* * *

 

 

Getting into the HYDRA base was far too easy. She took the motorcycle up to the front gate, taking the squadron of HYDRA soldiers on motorbikes sent to intervene with her. Once she broke in the gate, she took advantage of her two pistols with ten spare cartridges of ammo apiece. She didn’t miss a single shot until her chambers were empty and her harness was bare. Then, she still managed to bash several heads in before she was overwhelmed with a wave of soldiers with flamethrowers. She had been plenty distracting, and as she expected, they didn’t shoot her on the spot but instead took her upstairs to see Schmidt.

 

“Arrogance may not be a uniquely American trait, but I must say you do it better than anyone. But there are limits to what even you can do, Captain. Or did Erskine tell you otherwise?” Schmidt asked as she came in, arms held back by two soldiers.

 

“He told me you were insane,” Stephanie said.

 

“Ah. He resented my genius and tried to deny me what was rightfully mine. But he gave you everything. So, what made you so special?”

 

“Nothing,” Stephanie said. “I’m just a girl from Brooklyn.” Schmidt hit her across the face several times as if trying to wear her down. He hit her in the solar plexus and threw an  uppercut that made her teeth rattle. “You really want to know why I’m special? Why he chose me?” She could feel the blood in her mouth as she smiled at him with as much charm as she could muster. “He chose me because I  _ am _ nothing.” She whispered so softly, he drew closer, as if entranced, “You want to be a god, I miss being a secretary.” She smiled. “And I can do this all day.” She lunged forward and smacked the front of her helmet hard into the bridge of his burned-off nose. She felt his face crunch. Schmidt reeled backward, grabbing his nose with one hand while blindly searching to the gun at his hip with the other. Just as he pulled out his pistol, the glass windows of the weapons lab they were in shattered. Morita, Georgie, Dugan, Gabe, Ruthie, Dernier, Leah, and Falsworth broke into the room, guns blazing. Schmidt fled, while the rest of HYDRA dropped dead.

 

“Cap, you might need this,” Falsworth said, tossing her shield.

 

“We’re in,” Morita said to his comms, “Assault team, go!”

 

The good thing about being in the HYDRA weapons room was that it was easy to grab two of the pistols with a seemingly infinite supply of energy blasts. Stephanie then headed after Schmidt. HYDRA soldiers tried to get between her and him, but she never missed. She would deflect their attacks, smack them with the shield if they were close enough, and shoot them if they weren’t. As she sped through the halls, the doors started to close. She saw Schmidt disappear through a pair of blast doors that were slowly winding shut. She hurled her shield through the air, and it slipped between the doors, keeping them stuck open. Before Stephanie could dash through the gap, a HYDRA soldier with a flamethrower advanced on her. She dodged and rolled out of the path of the flames. Before she had time to raise one of the pistols and try to take him down, a blast of submachine fire filled the hall. The flamethrowing soldier fell onto his face, and Peggy stood behind him, toting a gun.

 

“You’re late,” Stephanie teased.

 

“Weren’t you about to-” Peggy motioned down the hall.

 

“Right,” Stephanie said. She dashed down the corridor, to where it led at a hanger. The wide bombing plane she had seen the specs for was in the hangar and was starting to taxi down the runway. Stephanie ran after it, but she knew she wasn’t going to be fast enough.

 

Down the runway, a car appeared. Phillips and Peggy had apprehended Schmidt’s personal vehicle, and with a press of a button, it was shooting down the track at a speed that let them slowly gain on the plane. Stephanie stood up in the shotgun, ready to leap onto the plane.

 

“Wait,” Peggy said Stephanie turned around. Peggy pulled Stephanie by the harness and kissed her on the mouth. It was only for a split second but had all the emotional weight of the goodbye that they both knew would be coming. “Go get him,” Peggy said.

 

Stephanie realized with the residual panic of the unspoken thing that Phillips was right there to see this exchange. She looked at him in confusion and curiosity, momentarily forgetting the time and place of the exchange to see his reaction.

 

“I’m not kissin’ you!” Phillips exclaimed.

 

That was all Stephanie needed to get back into the game. She pushed off the windshield and found herself on one of the wheels. As the plane lifted up over the runway, and into the sky above the Alps, the wheels folded into the belly of the ship, and she was there too. In the belly of the plane, Stephanie could  see all of the single fighter planes that had destinations across Europe and the Eastern seaboard. Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, London. From the eerie blue glow of the bombs in the planes, she knew their power would be devastating. Taking out the few guards and pilots in the belly of the ship was no more difficult than it had ever been. With her shield and her stolen pistols, they crumpled on the floor in a matter of moments. 

 

Now, she needed to figure out how to disable the ships. There was some sort of mechanical release system which allowed the smaller fighter planes to exit the larger aircraft. If she deactivated this system and completely destroyed it, then there would be no way for the bombs to get off the plane. Her eyes scanned the area, following the paths of cables and wires until she managed to find a control panel, in German, of course. Her German had improved, but even she couldn’t completely understand what everything meant. She did recognize it was some sort of electrical circuit. Pull the levers, the cables activate the motors, and the plane bay opens. Her best choice was to break the circuit. She pried the back off the control panel, watching where the cables plugged into the back and their individual paths. She didn’t really understand what she was looking at, but acting on her hunch, she ripped every single cable out of the control panel. For good measure, she slammed her shield into the control panel several times so it couldn’t be repaired. Satisfied the fighter planes would not be going anywhere, she headed to the cockpit of the ship.

 

“You don’t give up, do you?” Schmidt asked as he saw her.

 

“Nope!” She said brightly. Their fight was brutal. Schmidt managed to knock both pistols and the shield out of her hands, while she disarmed him in turn, and got her knife in his thigh in the process. He ripped it out and tossed it away. Then, there were the fisticuffs. Her speed and power were matched by his, and she didn’t have the advantage of outsmarting him either. It seemed, for every punch she got in, he got one in as well. She collapsed eventually. Unlike him, her serum was wearing off, and exhaustion was overcoming her.

 

“You could have the power of the gods! Yet you wear a flag on your chest and think you fight a battle of nations! I have seen the future, Captain! There are no flags!” Schmidt exclaimed. She used the opportunity of his self-righteous monologuing to lunge for the shield and toss it through the air. It cut through the console supplying power to the plane, knocking down the blue cosmic cube which was the power source for all of this technology.

 

“What have you done?” Schmidt cried. He hurried over to pick up the cube. Stephanie slowly rose to her feet and watched him. There was a spark between his hand and the cube as he picked it up. This spark was the catalyst for the cube, as bright, blue energy started to pour from it. The energy, in a beam, shot up a short distance and then seemed to condense upon itself. The blue energy got brighter and hotter until something within the ball of heat ruptured, and it looked like the air was ripped in half. In the tear in this ball of energy, Stephanie could see stars and galaxies. The rip, surrounded by bright, pulsing energy slowly sunk through the air, or rather, they moved in the plane, and it didn’t. It seemed to absorb Schmidt, and once he was gone, it turned off. Without energy or power anymore, it fell to the ground, still burning so hot that it melted straight through the bottom of the plane. Stephanie didn’t have time to fetch it, nor did she want to. Whatever it had done, the console was mostly destroyed, and it was still heading toward the United States on autopilot. Destination: New York City. She managed to activate the radio system, blasting on all HYDRA frequencies in hopes of getting in with somebody she knew.

 

“Come in, this is Captain Barnes. Do you read me?” She asked.

 

“Captain Barnes!” Leah’s voice crackled through the coms. “What is your-”

 

She stopped, and Peggy could be heard over the radio, “Stephanie! Is that you? Are you alright?”

 

“Peggy!” Stephanie exclaimed. “Schmidt’s dead.” She didn’t think anyone would survive that.

 

“What about the plane?” Peggy asked.

 

“That’s a little bit tougher to explain,” Stephanie said.

 

“Give me your coordinates, I’ll find you a safe landing site,” Peggy said.

 

“There isn’t going to be a safe landing,” Stephanie said. Not with all the bombs. Not with the lack of controls. The only thing she could do was make it go up or down at this point. “But I can try to force it down.”

 

“I’ll get Howard on the line, he’ll know what to do,” Peggy said.

 

“There’s not enough time. This thing’s moving too fast, and it’s heading for New York,” Stephanie said. “I gotta put her in the water.”

 

“Please, don’t do this. We have time. We can work it out,” Peggy said. She sounded tearful. Stephanie was getting tearful as well.

 

“Right now I’m in the middle of nowhere. If I wait any longer a lot of people are gonna die. Peggy, this is my choice,” she said. “Let me make it.” She began to use the controls to angle the plane downward. There was a moment of silence. “Peggy?”

 

“I’m here,” Peggy said.

 

“Don’t go,” Stephanie begged.

 

“I won’t,” Peggy promised.

 

Stephanie pulled the chain off from around her neck and looked at the two rings. She tangled her fingers in the chain, so the two golden bands were balanced in her palm. “Have you ever been to the Met?” Stephanie asked Peggy. She watched as the ocean got closer.

 

“No,” Peggy said.

 

“It’s wonderful,” Stephanie said. “I’d go there when I was having a good day, admission was cheap. And I’d sit on a cushioned bench with my pencils, and I’d sketch what I could. For practice, you know? I must’ve drawn half the museum before I got a job at Stark Industries. It’s a good place to think. It’s always quiet.” She looked at the rings, and at the freezing, icy water that was almost there. “I’d’ve liked to take you one day. Explain surrealism to you.” It was getting close. “Ask Howa-” She hit the water. It slammed into her and sent her into darkness.

 

The darkness was strange because it was almost like that period just before you fall asleep. Where you can feel reality and the abyss tugging at you. Stephanie was freezing, and she couldn’t move, and she could feel her blood slipping through her veins and her heartbeat barely thrumming in her chest for what felt like hours. She didn’t need to breathe, though, which is why she was sure she was dead. And she wanted to see him so badly, but he wasn’t coming. The silence was roaring in her ears, and her thoughts were slow and wandering. Where was she? What was happening? Was this death? Was this all that was left for her, her dreary thoughts and the sensations of her last seconds? The nothingness reached an overwhelming crescendo, and Stephanie felt nothing at all.

 

* * *

 

 

The next thing she remembered was being warm. There was light around her, she could feel and see it through her closed eyelids. There was sound. A gentle breeze, the quiet droning of a radio. For one second, Stephanie thought this was heaven. And then, she recognized the radio transmission, “-Curveball, high and outside for ball one. So the Dodgers are tied, 4-4. And the crowd well knows that with one swing of his bat, this fellow’s capable of making it a brand-new game again. Just an absolutely gorgeous day here at Ebbets Field. The Phillies have managed to tie up at 4-4. But the Dodgers have three men on.

"Pearson beaned Reiser in Philadelphia last month. Wouldn’t the youngster like a hit here to return the favour? Pete leans in. Here’s the pitch. Swung on. A line to the right. And it gets past Rizzo. Three runs will score. Reiser heads to third. Durocher’s going to wave him in. Here comes the relay, but they won’t get him-” Memories flooded into her mind in tandem with the words. She remembered seeing that curveball, the blue sky and the fluffy clouds above the stadium, her cheering as the Dodgers jumped up to 7-4 in just a few, dramatic seconds. 

Why was this playing? It felt wrong, it was more than wrong, it was suspicious. Stephanie sat up. As she looked out the window, the buildings also looked strange.  They lacked depth. The door opened. A young woman stepped in. She had dark reddish-brownish hair which was curled but fell loose around her shoulders. What sort of woman went to work with loose hair? Her makeup was in the wrong places, and her WAC uniform was wrong in so many ways. Firstly, the tie was too wide. Her skirt was olive green, not chocolate brown. There were strange lines beneath her shirt at the tops of her breasts, as if she was wearing an ill-fitting bustier or corset beneath her shirt, not the soft-cupped brassieres that were recommended.

 

“Good morning,” She said. She checked her watch. “Or, should I say, afternoon?” She was smiling kindly enough, but there was something insincere and incorrect about everything.

 

“Where am I?” Stephanie asked.

 

“You’re in a recovery room in New York City,” the woman said.

 

Stephanie mouthed along with the radio, “The Dodgers take the lead, 8-4. Oh, Dodgers! Everyone is on their feet. What a game we have here today, folks. What a game indeed.” It was exactly as she remembered. That was from 1941, so it wasn’t the most recent game. This woman clearly wasn’t a member of the WAC. Stephanie was wearing a men’s t-shirt and men’s khaki pants, which fit far too tight at the waist. “Where am I really?”

 

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” The woman said.

 

“The game, it’s from May, nineteen forty-one. I know, cause I was there. You have seventeen uniform violations, and no hospital would ever put me in men’s clothes.” She stood up and approached the woman. “Now, I’m gonna ask you again, where am I?”

 

“Captain Barnes-” The woman said, trying to sound conciliatory. Two men in black entered the room. “Wait,” the woman said, holding them back. “We’re not supposed to-”

 

Stephanie didn’t care what they were supposed to do, she slugged the first one in the face and kicked the second one so hard he flew right through the drywall. The walls fell away, and Stephanie realized she was on some sort of set. The fake hospital room was in the middle of a warehouse. She only had one option, she booked it, sprinting out the warehouse doors, through corridors and hallways, jumping over and slipping past people. She found a door to the outside and found herself in New York City, but everything was different. The cars, the fashion, the people. She booked it down the avenue, dashing around crowds of people in Manhattan. She found herself in times square, but it was far brighter than she remembered. Large television screens were posted to the buildings. There were advertisements, news headlines, and the stock market suspended above her. Everything was brighter and richer, louder, and smellier. As she stood in the center of Time’s square, looking around, Stephanie felt overwhelmed. 

 

A series of black cars surrounded her. A black man with an eyepatch stepped out of one of them. He had an authoritative stance, and was dressed entirely in black, “At ease, soldier! Look, I’m sorry about that little show back there, but we thought it best to break it to you slowly.”

 

“Break what?” Stephanie asked.

 

“You’ve been asleep, Cap. For almost seventy years,” the man said. And Stephanie believed it. Because then it made sense. This new world. The strange technology. The different cars and clothes. The reason why that woman wasn’t in proper uniform. “You gonna be okay?”

 

“What’s the exact date?” Stephanie asked.

 

“October eighth, two-thousand and eleven,” he said. “We’d be more than happy to debrief you Captain, but not in the middle of Times Square.”

 

Stephanie let them take her back to the building she had escaped from, and they took her up to some sort of conference room. A few boxes of files were waiting for her on the table. Fury explained everything to her. A few years ago, a glacier in Greenland split. Since then, there had been excavations in that area. Some of the men found the Valkyrie. When this agency, S.H.I.E.L.D., realized what it was, they went to excavate her to bury Captain America properly at last. To their surprise, she had survived.

 

“As far as we can tell, your body processes glycogen and glucose very differently,” Fury explained. “The freezing point of your body was lowered as a result, and instead of freezing to death, your body went into a suspended cryogenic state. The last sixty-six years were a matter of minutes to your body, because of how much it had slowed down. We were astounded to learn that both of you survived the ice.”

 

“Both of us?” Stephanie asked. Fury’s brow furrowed.

 

“You mean to tell me, you didn’t know? I suppose that makes sense. Not very many women in your situation would have done what you did if they knew-”

 

“Stop cryptically referring to shit and tell me,” Stephanie said.

 

“Captain Barnes, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but you’re twelve weeks pregnant,” Fury said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know a few of you saw that reveal coming, but I hope you enjoyed the reveal nonetheless.
> 
> Similarly to my adaptations of Thor and Iron Man 2, I WILL have an epilogue chapter which will provide some context leading up to the Avengers. It will deal with Stephanie adjusting to the 21st century, especially considering her condition. It has a few surprises I hope you'll like. I'm fond of it, so I hope you'll all look forward to it.
> 
> In the meantime, as always, your feedback is appreciated. I'd love to know your thoughts on this chapter and the fic in general now that it's mostly come to a close.
> 
> Thank you all so much, until next time! :)


	11. Coda: Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stephanie Barnes in the 21st Century: Dealing with a new society, her depression, and her upcoming motherhood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has been following, reviewing, and reading this story! I've loved sharing Stephanie with you, and I hope that you all have enjoyed experiencing her with me.
> 
> This is the epilogue. It's one of my favorite chapters. I hope you all enjoy.

 

Stephanie found a place in Brooklyn almost immediately. The back pay provided to her by the United States government, and MGM Studios from all their later movies and merchandising meant Stephanie came out of the ice with more money than she knew what to do with. She bought an apartment, she bought in full and owned a two million dollar apartment, and it was a measly fraction of what she had, only having to pay utility bills for the rest of forever. And the apartment was huge. It had three bedrooms, a laundry room, and two bathrooms, as well as a kitchen, dining, and living space the size of Stephanie’s old apartment from before the war. There was a bay window in both the dining room and master bedroom, and a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf taking up much of the wall in the living space, with a Putnam ladder. She had a walk-in pantry, several closets, small storage crannies, and more shelving than she knew what to do with. Outside, it was the beautiful brownstone section of Park Slope, and she was half a block from Prospect Park.

 

The Catholic church she had gone to growing up, St. Savior, and the synagogue Bucky’s family once attended, Congregation Beth Elohim, were both still standing and had active communities, and both a ten minute’s walk from her new apartment. She could go to a supermarket five minutes east, or the market at Grand Army Plaza on Saturdays. The hospital her mom worked at was still open, and she could go to the library or the museum whenever she wanted. S.H.I.E.L.D., which was the successor of the SSR, had given her lists of places she could go in the near area, the information they thought would be relevant as an apology for her traumatic reintroduction.

 

Stephanie realized a couple of things about the future straight away. Not only had it progressed with technology, but it had also progressed socially as well. There was a recent conservative pull as evidenced by the reduction in social services that had come to fruition after the war, but for the most part, things were better. Intentional racial segregation had been outlawed, although there were still some institutional measures that maintained the separation indirectly. Women had campaigned for economic and reproductive freedom, many married women had jobs, and abortion was finally legal so women didn’t have to seek dangerous back-alley clinics when they couldn’t carry a child. The Women’s Army Corps was disbanded because the entire military was integrated, both by race and sex. She was glad that the world had progressed, but it was never the forefront of her mind.

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. gave her files on what happened to the Howling Commandos after her death. After much debate, Peggy Carter volunteered to lead the Commandos in her place and did so until the war in Germany ended that summer. She then supervised as the SSR apprehended the remnants of HYDRA. After the war ended, she went back to New York to work at the SSR. The men in the Howling Commandos were allowed to stay an active military unit in to help with the small missions looking for escaped Nazi officials to bring them to trial, while the women of the WAC were sent home and told to have babies and get back in the kitchen. Stark Industries swooped in and opened their doors to women, not just the commandos, but any women who were qualified and wanted to continue their work. Georgie worked as a mechanic while taking night classes until she found herself an engineering degree. Ruthie, too, was accepted onto the staff to work in weapons’ development as a tester to see how effective Howard’s designs were on the shooting range. Leah, Angela, and Christine continued working for Stark Industries as a receptionist, secretary and computer, respectively. When Howard Stark, Dum-Dum Dugan and Peggy Carter founded S.H.I.E.L.D. in 1947, they accepted both male and female applicants, and had agents of all ethnicities, quickly growing into one of the most successful security agencies for their diversity and talented workforce. Some of the Commandos were still alive, living in retirement homes or with their families. Howard had died in a car accident in the nineties, leaving his daughter his company. Peggy was in assisted living in Virginia. Stephanie could have seen her, easily, it was a few hours via train. Stephanie never did.

 

* * *

 

She went to the grocery store and made sure she wouldn’t go hungry. She read the files and booklets S.H.I.E.L.D. had given to her. Sometimes she even would walk the perimeter of Prospect Park because the doctor told her that she and the baby needed exercise. But Stephanie didn’t want to do anything. The desire to stay in the empty bed was strong every morning. With no war to fight, no reveille to play, and nobody else in the world, the only thing that got Stephanie out of bed was the reminder that she and the baby needed food. The apartment was unfurnished. A small collection of clothes which she kept hanging up in her huge closet, her bed and bedding, some toiletries for the bathroom, the boxes from S.H.I.E.L.D., a metal folding chair, some cooking supplies she bought, and a stack of disposable plates and forks were the only things she owned for the first month.

 

As the scientists and doctors speculated, a week after Stephanie woke up, she was finally starting to look pregnant. The strength of her abdominal muscles meant that her pregnancy would show less or later, but it wasn’t a cause for medical concern. Her clothing, when layered correctly, often disguised the swell above her hips, but the swell grew quickly. 

 

The clothes Stephanie had soon barely fit. And she didn’t want to go anywhere to buy more. 

 

The lying in bed got worse.

 

When she laid in bed, sometimes, she would see Bucky. Sometimes, what she saw were nightmares. Most of the time, actually. She was always haunted by his corpse. What was it now? A broken skeleton lying at the bottom of a ravine in Europe? Maybe he had been pulled and picked apart by scavenging animals, her husband strewn throughout the alps for miles. Sometimes, however, Bucky didn’t visit her as a haunting though. As a corpse which she saw in the corners of her eye. Sometimes, he was there. She could roll over in bed and practically see him beside her, the smell of him wafting off the pillow. She would gaze up at his blue-grey eyes, and he would smile at her, reaching out to touch her, but he never could.

 

“When was the last time you ate?” He asked her. 

 

She suddenly felt the hunger kick in. She went to the kitchen, to realize that the only food she had was a can of beans. After eating the contents, she swaddled herself in the elastic pants, baggy shirt, and too-large jacket and went to the store. As she stood with a wire cart in the middle of the produce aisle, she had no idea what she wanted to buy and felt like bursting into tears. She decided to head to the canned food aisle, where an African-American woman with buzzed, curly hair was standing still in the dead middle of the aisle, staring at something.

 

“On your left,” Stephanie croaked.

 

The woman moved to the side with her cart and let Stephanie pass and shovel cans of soup and beans into her cart before moving on.

 

A few aisles down, Stephanie was looking at frozen food. Then again, that woman was taking up the aisle and just staring at something. Stephanie wasn’t mad. She’d been spacey too plenty of times in public. She just croaked out, “on your left,” and added frozen vegetables to her cart.

 

Once Stephanie finished the conversation with the cashier and had her groceries in bags, she headed out and back toward her too big, and too-empty apartment. In the way between Stephanie and the exit was that same woman, carrying one small bag of groceries.

 

“On your left,” Stephanie said, trying to pass through the exit.

 

“On, my left, got it,” The woman replied. But she didn’t step out of the way. She looked up at Stephanie with a very scrutinizing expression. Stephanie looked back. The woman had a gap between her front teeth and was well-dressed. She had a kind face, but she was definitely thinking based on the look in her warm, brown eyes. “Army?” She asked Stephanie.

 

“Yes,” Stephanie replied.

 

“Air Force,” She motioned to herself. “I was pararescue. When did you get back? Recently, I bet.”

 

“Last month,” Stephanie nodded. The woman wasn’t giving Stephanie any strange vibes. She was friendly, and she clearly was military. Stephanie was reminded of the sisterhood between the women in the WAC more than anything.

 

“How long were you active?” she asked.

 

“Two years, and a bit,” Stephanie said.

 

“Sleeping alright?” she questioned.

 

“Slept better,” Stephanie admitted.

 

“Bed’s too soft, right?” she asked.

 

“Like a marshmallow,” Stephanie agreed.

 

“Adjusting is hard,” the woman pulled out a card from her pocket, “Sam Wilson, I’m a social worker with Veterans Affairs now. If you ever need help, don’t hesitate to ask.”

 

“You often find wayward souls at grocery stores?” Stephanie asked, accepting the card. “I’m Stephanie, by the way.”

 

“More than I expect. Nice to meet you, Stephanie,” Sam said.

 

* * *

 

Stephanie didn’t know what she looked like. There wasn’t a mirror in her condo, and she hadn’t spent any time glancing into store windows recently. So, when she went to the hospital and was actually confronted in the mirror by her own face, she looked dead. Her hair was like a mound of yellow string hanging around her face. There were bags under her eyes. Her cheeks were hallowed. She swore the baby was sucking the life from her.

 

That wasn’t the case, according to the doctor. But, Stephanie did need to take better care of herself. She hadn’t gained enough weight since the last check-up. She wasn’t eating enough. She wasn’t sleeping enough.

 

“Do you need psychiatric intervention?” The S.H.I.E.L.D.-approved doctor asked. She thought about the corpse of her husband that haunted her. She thought about when he laid beside her in bed and smiled, and then his face twisted into a look of pure horror as he decayed before her eyes. She shook her head.

 

“It’s just been hard adjusting,” Stephanie said. “I’m doing better.” She lied.

 

“Your baby is between eighteen and nineteen weeks now,” the doctor said.

 

“I don’t understand,” Stephanie said. “A month ago I was at twelve weeks.”

 

“As we suspected, the effects of the serum are bonded to your genetic material,” the doctor explained. “The same processes which make you regenerate at an accelerated rate makes your child generate at an accelerated rate. A rate your body is struggling to keep up with because you aren’t taking proper care of it. You need to eat between five and seven thousand calories a day, at the least. You need eight hours of sleep, long walks, and prenatal vitamins.”

 

“Does that mean the pregnancy is going to go faster?” Stephanie asked. “It’ll be thirty weeks instead of forty?”

 

“Possibly,” the doctor nodded. “It may also extend to pediatric development. Your baby may reach milestones faster than the average.”

 

“How much faster?” Stephanie asked.

 

“I don’t know yet,” The doctor said. “In the meantime, eat more.”

 

* * *

 

“You gotta take care of yourself,” She heard Bucky say as she walked through Brooklyn and back to her brownstone. “You have to take care of our baby, what would your mother say if she saw you moping like this?” That night, she took a bath. The water was scalding, but she sat in it, and she scrubbed the oil and dirt out of her hair and her skin until the water was murky. She drained the tub, filled it up again, and scrubbed off a second time. She wrapped herself in a towel and fell asleep on the too soft bed with her wet hair soaking into her pillow.

 

The next morning, she put a shirt and her pants with the elastic waistband, with a large jacket over everything to cover up her bump, and she headed to the address on Sam’s card.

 

“I’m here to see Sam Wilson,” Stephanie said to the receptionist.

 

The woman looked her up and down and sighed, “Another one. Sam just doesn’t quit. She’s in a group meeting right now, but she’ll be available in ten minutes. You’re welcome to have a seat and wait.”

 

“Thank you,” Stephanie said. She sat down in the reception room and leafed through a Times magazine. _Toni Stark: Time’s Person Of The Year 2010_. Howard’s daughter had gotten kidnapped in Afghanistan, received a chest full of shrapnel, had her legs amputated, ended her father’s legacy as a weapons designer, and had some flying metal suit that she’d used to get herself and others out of danger, earning the moniker _Iron Maiden_. Stephanie had been offered by S.H.I.E.L.D. to meet Toni, as they knew she was close with Howard. Stephanie refused. She would be nothing to this woman, and Howard was gone, she had to move forward. However, now it seemed like she wasn’t moving at all.

 

“I’ll see you all next week,” Sam said as a dozen or so veterans headed out from the back room. One of them called something to her and she laughed, waving after them. She noticed Stephanie shrouded in a large coat with a magazine on her lap. “Hey, you came.”

 

“I… I need help, I think,” Stephanie admitted.

 

“No problem. That’s my job,” Sam said. “Come to my office.”

 

Sam’s office was cramped, with one desk, two chairs, a StarkLaptop, and a row of filing cabinets with more files stacked on top.

 

“So,” Sam said as she sat down. “What’s wrong?”

 

“I need to take better care of myself,” Stephanie said. “But I don’t want to.”

 

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “You don’t feel like you deserve it.”

 

Stephanie nodded dully “I shouldn’t be alive,” she said. “I crashed a plane.”

 

“I thought you were Army.”

 

“That’s why I crashed.” Stephanie joked. Then she grew somber again, “I lived. Others didn’t. Why do I get to live?”

 

“I felt the same way after I lost Riley. My partner, my best friend, we probably were more although we shouldn’t have been.”

 

“I was my husband’s commanding officer in a special operations unit,” Stephanie said. “And I watched him-.” She still couldn’t say it out loud. She watched Sam’s expression morph from surprise to sympathy. “So when the plane was crashing, I didn’t mind. And then when I lived, I found out in medical that I was _pregnant_.”

 

“Are you still-”

 

“Five months,” Stephanie said, touching her stomach to emphasize. What looked like a baggy shirt was actually only loosely taut over her abdomen. “And I miss him. And I hate myself for surviving. And I hate myself for putting our child at risk. And I’m alone. My family is dead. My friends are dead. I should be dead. I have an apartment, and it’s empty except for food and a bed. I own two outfits.”

 

“Come to meetings,” Sam said. “Every Thursday at six. It’ll be good to have a routine, and you’d be surprised at how similar our stories are.”

 

“I’d think mine’s a bit rare,” Stephanie said.

 

“Do you need financial help?” Sam asked. “If you’re pregnant and unemployed-”

 

“Money is the one thing I don’t need,” Stephanie said.

 

“Well, then you need to buy clothes and furniture,” Sam said.

 

“I don’t know how,” Stephanie said.

 

Sam nodded, “I could go shopping with you.”

 

“You’d do that?” Stephanie asked.

 

“Sure,” Sam said. “Give me your phone number and we can arrange a day-”

 

“I don’t have a phone,” Stephanie said.

 

“Email?” Sam asked. Stephanie shook her head. “You want me to use a carrier pigeon, what are you used to?”

 

Stephanie shrugged, “I’m old-fashioned.”

 

“You’re Amish is what you are,” Sam said. “You need a phone and a computer. Tell you what, we’re going shopping. This weekend. I’ll meet you at yours. Just give me your name, rank and address for our system.”

 

“I live at 882, Union Street, unit 2A,” Stephanie said. “And my name is Captain Stephanie Barnes.”

 

Sam looked up at her, “Very funny.”

 

“What’s funny?”

 

“You’re Captain Stephanie Barnes? Like Captain America? I mean, I did know a kid named George Washington in high school, but it’s not like he’s a president now.”

 

“If you knew him in high school, he’s not old enough to be president,” Stephanie shrugged.

 

“What’s your real name?” Sam asked.

 

“My maiden name is Stephanie Rogers,” Stephanie said.

 

“Like Captain America again?” Sam was starting to look annoyed. “Birth date?”

 

“July fourth.”

 

“Alright, I am trying to help you-”

 

“I’m not lying,” Stephanie said. Sam squinted at her and typed something into her laptop. She clicked on something and looked at the picture for a very long time. Then she looked up at Stephanie and back at the picture. Her eyes went very wide and her jaw slackened.

 

“You’re her,” Sam gaped. “How is that possible, that was World War Two, you’d be ninety three!”

 

“I froze in the arctic but I didn’t die. I was stuck - frozen, but alive - until about a month ago.”

 

“No wonder you’re so weird,” Sam said.

 

“You believe me?”

 

“Nobody would make this crap up.”

 

“If you don’t want to help, I completely understand-”

 

“Are you kidding me? You led the first military unit that was completely integrated by race and gender. You’re the second woman to win a medal of honor. It’d be un-American if I didn’t help you go to IKEA.” Sam shook her head. “Man, I met Captain America in a supermarket.”

 

“Please, call me Stephanie,” Stephanie said. “Captain America… she’s dead. I’m just trying to live as myself.”

 

“I understand,” Sam said. “I’m sorry for fangirling on you.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sam showed up at eight in the morning on a Saturday with a car she said was her sister’s, two paper cups full of hot tea, and a bag full of pastries.

 

It was barely a ten minute drive to their next location: a shopping center on Atlantic Avenue. Sam took Stephanie to a maternity store, where she bought a pile of clothes. Sweaters, sweatshirts, tunics, blouses, trousers made of denim and cotton, skirts, stretchy dresses, denim overalls, undershirts, camisoles, brassieres for nursing, a plaid wool coat for winter, and a skin-tight but soft undergarment Sam insisted could be worn in place of trousers. They went to a huge store called Target where Sam made Stephanie buy “house things” like an actual set of dishes, silverware, soap, toiletries, hair products, makeup, laundry detergent, kitchen supplies, a toolbox, a television, and the smallest StarkLaptop available.

 

Stephanie was shocked when they passed by a store where large pictures of women wearing nothing but their undergarments, she would never have expected to see advertisements for lingerie that were so public and erotic. Sam took Stephanie to a store to set up a handheld cellular phone, and they were giving a free StarkPhone if she signed a contract for two years of an unlimited data, talk and text plan. Sam said it was a good idea, so Stephanie got the plan and her phone.

 

The next place they went was the “IKEA” in Red Hook that Sam had mentioned a few days ago, It was a huge warehouse with the Swedish flag. When they went inside, there were small fake rooms set up full of furniture. They recorded all the pieces Stephanie liked on a piece of paper. After walking through the whole store, which took hours, Stephanie had decided how she was going to furnish the entire apartment. They spoke to a worker and arranged for IKEA to deliver all of the boxes the next day in Park Slope.

 

On the way back to Stephanie’s apartment, Sam stopped by an employee-owned and local art store walking distance from Stephanie’s apartment.

 

“You know I like art?” Stephanie asked.

 

“Everyone knows that, it’s in your diary,” Sam said.

 

“My diary?” Stephanie asked.

 

“We’re going to a bookstore next,” Sam declared. “Hobbies are good. You need a hobby. You like drawing, let’s go.” Stephanie bought a stack of sketchbooks, colored pencils, graphite pencils, charcoal, oil pastels, conte crayons, markers and inks, sharpeners, and erasers.

 

The bookstore was also a small, local establishment. Stephanie bought _A People’s History of The United States_ , _Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Hiroshima, Parting the Waters: Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement 1954-63, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation, Legacy of Ashes: History of the CIA, Columbine, Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Madam Secretary: A Memoir, W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963, The Feminine Mystique, Vietnam: A History, The Things We Carried, The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II, President Kennedy: Profile of Power, The Fifties,The Sixties, The Seventies, The Eighties, The Nineties,_ and _Howard Stark: The Father Of Modern Industrialism._  

 

It was then that Sam explained when Stephanie “died” most of her belongings were taken he SSR and then the national archives. In the fifties, her sketchbooks where she both drew and narrated her life were declassified and published by the historians, with limited commentary providing context, known as _The Captain’s Diary_ . Two new Captain America movies were made after her diary was published, on in France and one by MGM in the early sixties, both of which framed her story as nothing more than a tragic romance. In the later sixties, a female historian decided to reclaim Stephanie’s life by writing the still-beloved biography, _The Girl With A Star-Spangled Heart: A Biography of Captain America_ . That sparked a trend in the seventies where everyone was writing opinionated biographies or analyses on Captain America. The ones Stephanie managed to get at the bookstore included _Stephanie Barnes: The Girl From Brooklyn_ , _First Officer to Captain: Stephanie Barnes’ Impact on The Military_ , _Captain America Wasn’t A Hero_ , and _Captain America And Rosie The Riveter: Foundations of the Modern Feminist Movement_. In the eighties, the historical fiction romances returned, with a whopping total of thirty-three books that Sam said were bad Captain America smut, with a handful of PG-13 exceptions. Stephanie bought all of them. Maybe she wasn’t ready to read bad narratives of her marriage, but it would be something she could work toward. After Captain America reached a fever pitch in the eighties, she faded back to being a historical figure like Abraham Lincoln or Benjamin Franklin, with a small resurgence of interest in the early twenty-first century with a “crappy-ass Drew Barrymore movie” according to Sam.

 

* * *

 

 

Sam helped when the IKEA furniture came, and Stephanie refrained from helping move any heavy things, not because she was concerned for her physical health, but because she didn’t want to scare the delivery men. She and Sam moved the boxes into the rooms they belonged in.

 

“You could paint in here,” Sam said as they moved the boxes of nursery items into the bedroom closest to Stephanie’s. “The walls, you know?”

 

“I could do a mural,” Stephanie said. “Right now, I want to have the parts I live in functioning.”

 

Sam nodded, “Need help with assembly?”

 

“I worked for Howard Stark, I can read a manual,” Stephanie said. “You can help if you have nothing better to do.”

 

“I need as much time away from my sister and her gross boyfriend as possible,” Sam said. “I live with her and apparently he also lives with her. I’m looking for my own place, but the housing market, you know?”

 

“Right,” Stephanie nodded. They managed to assemble the two couches, side tables, lamps, coffee table, media console, dining table, chandelier, and eight dining chairs (in case Stephanie ever had guests) before Sam had to leave. Stephanie would see her that Thursday at the meeting, and she promised Stephanie she would come by next weekend to help her with her electronics. Stephanie smiled and thanked her.

 

Stephanie tried to function the following week. She assembled her bedroom furniture, which consisted of an actual bed frame, nightstands, dressers, and a small loveseat to fit in the bay window. The spare bedroom became an office area for her with three large shelves, fabric boxes for the shelves, a corner desk, a swiveling chair, and a sofa that became a mattress in case she ever had a guest. Sam said it was a good idea. Her house was now furnished, with the history books she got barely taking up a shelf of the huge bookshelf in the living room. Her art supplies went into her office in the large shelves. The laptop was set on her desk, waiting for Sam to show her how the computers of the future worked.

 

Stephanie went to the grocery store wearing her maternity clothes, looking like a clean and presentable adult. She took walks around Prospect Park. She went to the VA meetings and realized how great it was to realize she wasn’t the only one who was struggling with adjusting. She settled into a routine.

 

On Mondays, she went to a museum or an art gallery somewhere in New York, taking a bag full of pencils and a sketchbook with her so she could draw.

 

On Tuesdays, she would go to the grocery store in the morning and spend her afternoon learning to cook something out of one of her new cookbooks.

 

On Wednesdays, weather permitting, she would take her sketchbook and something to read to Prospect Park, enjoying the fresh air and walking around.

 

On Thursdays, she spent her mornings in to read or draw or work, and her afternoons at the VA for her meetings.

 

On Fridays, she went down to the bookstore Sam introduced her to, perusing the shelves for anything that caught her interest. She had a bookshelf to fill. On the occasion she didn’t like a book, she donated it to the Brooklyn Library in case someone else found interest in it. Some Friday nights, she would take a walk through Park Slope so she could see the evening shabbat at the Barnes’ old congregation, never brave enough to look for a familiar face or go inside.

 

On Saturdays, she would go to the farmer’s market at the Army Plaza with Sam, and they would find something to do.

 

On Sundays, she would sit in a back pew at St. Savior and listen to a sermon about community or responsibility or compassion. One of the boys at the VA told her than church made him feel better, and she was inclined to agree, there was something calming about how absolute faith was. And it made her realize how long it had been since she had it. She stuck to her routine. She filled sketchbooks with her replications of people or of galleries. She read book after book after book until her bookshelf was actually starting to have a purpose.

 

She still saw Bucky sometimes, but it wasn’t a corpse that was haunting her. She saw him in crowds, a face that shifted in and out of existence. She saw him in the windows of the synagogue and in Prospect Park, gazing up at the sky. She heard him when she was falling asleep, his soft whispers telling her that she was so strong, so brave. She was going to be alright.

 

She spent Thanksgiving at the VA, they had an event for anyone who didn’t have a family to go to. They ate turkey and mashed potatoes, and went around the plastic table saying what they were thankful for. Stephanie realized that she did have things to be thankful for. She had a healthy, kicking baby inside her. She had a home. She had a handful of friends from the VA, and she had Sam, who was absolutely Stephanie’s closest friend at this point. Her December appointment showed that she was now developmentally at twenty-five or twenty-six weeks pregnant, at the end of the second trimester. They moved the estimation of her due date from early April to early-to-mid February.

 

Getting ready for Christmas was the worst. Did she want to celebrate Hanukkah too? Would she go to Mass? She decided to get a small tree for the coffee table and a pack of ornaments and lights to decorate it. Sam would be spending the holidays with her family in Harlem, so Stephanie was going to be alone again. Stephanie decided to go to church. Christmas Eve was a Saturday, so Stephanie went to see the nativity play. The next morning, she opened the small presents she had been given by the people in the group at the VA, and Sam. She decided to write them thank-you letters, and she went to morning Mass. She didn’t know what overcame her, perhaps it was just how much she missed her family. The apartment she and her mother had spent Christmas in, which then became the place where she and Bucky celebrated it. Every year except for those three during the war. The walk from St. Savior to their old building was so familiar that Stephanie didn’t need to think. Except when she reached the street, she was shocked to see the whole block was empty of buildings. Instead, there was an iron fence and a park full of trees. When she stepped inside, there was a playground on one half, and a fielded area on the other half, with benches lining the exterior. The sign posted on the front gate read: _Barnes Memorial Park, courtesy of Howard Stark._

 

Stephanie didn’t hate the park at first. Parks meant a place for children and dogs to enjoy themselves. It wasn’t a bad way to memorialize her and Bucky. Howard must have been proud of the park, because it was still very clean and wellkept. Stephanie liked it, almost, until she saw the statue. She didn’t see the statue at first because she assumed it was just a couple sitting on one of the many benches. But as she looked around, the couple was dead still. So she inspected them, to find that they were made of iron. Both dressed in army uniforms, the man was a sergeant and the woman was a captain of the WAC. They had a few uniform violations, mostly that they had unbuttoned their jackets and the girl had let down her hair to relax. His arm was flung around her shoulder, and she held his other hands in hers between them. Her head was on his shoulder, and they were both looking ahead with calm, contented expressions. Stephanie started to cry. And she hated it. Because this was how they were supposed to be. Together, maybe in death, but together. And here she was, alive. And nobody knew where his corpse was, but he was dead. They couldn’t be further apart.

 

She went back. It was dead cold in New York in December, but she would go to Barnes Memorial Park daily and glare at the statue. She would find some peace watching children covered in layers and layers throwing snowballs at each other, but she wouldn’t stop glaring at that statue. She knew it wasn’t healthy, but that didn’t stop her.

 

“I don’t like it either,” An old woman with a walker said as she sat down beside Stephanie one day. “But glaring at it isn’t going to make it hurt less.”

 

“Sorry?” Stephanie asked, confused at who this woman was, or why she sat down beside Stephanie.

 

“Now, when Rachel said she saw Aunt Stephanie at Barnes Memorial Park while taking the grandkids to build snowmen, I told her ‘well, that’s the statue.’ And when she said, no, Aunt Stephanie was looking at the statue, and she’s clearly alive and also very pregnant, well, I had to see it for myself.”

 

Stephanie squinted at the woman, realization flooding through her, “Becca Barnes?”

 

“Becca Barnes-Proctor, now,” she said. “Ninety years old and still walking around, if you could believe it. All of us are - the Barnes sisters. Of course, we’ve all had babies. And our babies have had babies. And my babies’ babies are having babies now too. Hannah’s living in Florida now at some nice retirement home. And Joanna’s in California, miles and miles away. I’m the only one who stayed in Brooklyn.”

 

“You know it’s me. You recognized me.”

 

“Well, you’re taller, but you and James told us about those experiments, and we learned plenty more from you biography in the sixties when it was mostly declassified. And I admit, seeing you full with a child is putting me off a bit. And I still can’t explain how you’re here. But I know it’s you, Stephanie Barnes.”

 

Stephanie started to cry. It was someone who knew her from before, and she was alive. All of her sisters-in-law were alive. She hadn’t even thought about looking for them.

 

“Is it James’s?” Becca asked.

 

“Yes,” Stephanie said.

 

“Is he with you?”

 

“No.”

 

“How are you alive?”

 

“I was frozen - literally frozen in time for seventy years. When they thawed me out, I found out about the- but he’s gone and - and I couldn’t save him, Becca, I couldn’t save him - it’s all my fault.”

 

“It was never your fault what the damn Nazis did,” Becca Barnes-Proctor snapped. “There was bupkis you could’ve done. Peggy Carter came and delivered the news personally before she led the Howling Commandos in your place because she was your friend, and she told me exactly how it happened because I asked. Bucky is gone, Steph, and the longer you keep wishing to be gone with him, the worse it’s gonna be when you’re doing everything alone. Now, come home, Stephanie. I don’t care what the government plugged you with, you and my new niece or nephew shouldn’t be in the cold.”

 

Stephanie nodded, and she followed Becca home.

 

* * *

 

The Braxton Hicks contractions started in January, and they were a lot stronger than Stephanie was expecting. The doctor told her that she needed to take it lighter now. They had no way of knowing when she was going to deliver. She reduced the distances of her walks, took less trips when she didn’t need them, and made sure to spend time off her swollen feet when she could. She attended nursing and labor classes and read a pile of parenting books she had gotten at the bookstore, all in preparation for the baby. The nursery was decorated, a fantasy woodland mural on one wall was the focal of the room. She had baby-proofed everything in the apartment, even though the baby wouldn’t walk for several months. Her obsessive preparation for her child was called “nesting” by Sam.

 

Stephanie went to see her sister once a week, when she was invited to family dinner on Friday evenings. Becca and her only daughter, Rachel lived with Rachel’s eldest son, George, and their wife and kids in a two-story co-op in Park Slope. Stephanie had gotten to video call with Hannah and children’s families and Joanna and her children’s families, she had gotten to laugh with Becca about Bucky, and cry about him with her. Having family was something Stephanie had forgotten after years of war and ice, and remembering it was exactly what she needed.

 

February first was the hardest day since Stephanie woke up, because it was the first time she was awake for the anniversary of Bucky’s death, which meant it was the first time for her. She felt more exhausted and lonely than usual. Her back pain was so severe she couldn’t tell if it was the pain radiating through her or the loss of her husband which kept her in bed. When she went to the bathroom later in the day and saw a pile of thick, grey-brown sludge in her underwear, she realized she might be in labor. The mucus plug being freed from her cervix would certainly make that mess. She texted her OB and the OB agreed she should go to the hospital. She pulled on her jacket, made sure her phone and keys were in the hospital bag, grabbed the hospital bag, and headed out of the apartment, walking to the hospital.

 

When she arrived and told the receptionist she needed to be checked in, the woman innocently asked, “And where is the father?”

 

“He’s not around anymore,” Stephanie said. “I need a bed, please.”

 

When she was given a private room to wait for her labor to progress, as she wasn’t fully dilated yet, she made sure that Sam and Becca knew where she was.

 

She managed to take a few fitful naps that night as the contractions got stronger. Never to the point of pain, or the crying and screaming that she had seen in the birthing videos, but it was certainly discomfort. The doctor checked in regularly, informing her that S.H.I.E.L.D. security was in the area and all of her doctors, nurses, and technicians had been vetted. Stephanie hadn’t even considered that someone would try to steal her child for the genetic material until then, and suddenly, it was a lot harder to sleep.

 

Her labor reached its climax at about four in the morning on the second of February. She was alone. The contractions were minutes apart, and the searing pain lasted for a minute or two at a time. When it was decided she was ready, the comfortable room shifted. She was raised slightly, her legs in stirrups, the doctor ready to catch. She grabbed the metal bars of the bed until they crumpled beneath her hands, took a deep breath, and pushed. The baby slipped out at once, screaming bloody murder and Stephanie started to sob. They wiped off the baby, wrapped him up, and gave him to her. It was a him, it was a boy, that’s what the doctor said.

 

“Hi, James,” She said to the baby on her chest. He stopped wailing, and blinked up at her with a surprised expression. His pale blue eyes were just like his father’s. He was so beautiful she couldn’t breathe.

 

“Is that his name?” One of the nurses cooed.

 

“James Joseph Barnes,” Stephanie said, nodding. “After his father, and mine. Two good men who defended their country.”

 

Stephanie had always resented her father for dying and leaving her mother and her. But it took for her to fall under the same circumstances as her mother to finally understand. And now she felt guilty for years of resentment. She couldn’t imagine if James resented Bucky for dying. If it wasn’t her fault for what the Nazis did, it definitely wasn’t Bucky’s. She had considered throwing a ‘Howard’ in there somewhere, but Howard had enough things named after him.

 

“James, what a lovely name,” The nurse said.

 

* * *

 

 

The tests all had the same results: James Joseph Barnes was the most healthy newborn in New York. He received his post-delivery immunizations immediately because Stephanie was haunted by her childhood. She knew that babies died less now. She knew the diseases that made parents lose half their kids were nearly eradicated. She still was amazed sometimes and how cherished babies were. Stephanie was advised by a lactation expert to help her feed James while they did all the tests. The lactation expert was a specialist entirely on feeding, imagine that, when Stephanie was younger it was something you had to learn from the women in your life. She hadn’t the chance to learn from her mother or her mother-in law, but there was a woman who worked at the hospital for the sole purpose of helping women nurse their babies. The last test for James before he could be released was to see if he could breathe alright if left in his carrier for ten minutes, without Stephanie able to intervene. He cried for a bit that she was gone, and then fell asleep, breathing just fine. The paperwork was signed, Stephanie was wheeled out with James in his stroller, and she walked back to Park Slope with him on the morning of February sixth, sixty-seven years since she crashed in the ice. She had been pregnant for sixty-seven years, and she definitely felt like it.

 

It wasn’t until she was alone with James did she start to panic about, well, everything. How was she going to do this alone? Would she even be good at it? What if something happened to James? If someone took him because of what her genes were like? She worked herself into such a fit that she was sobbing in her bed as soon as she got him down to sleep, baby monitor on her nightstand. She didn’t realize she had fallen asleep until he woke her up with his wails, and she had to go to find out what was wrong. After nursing him, burping him, changing his diaper, and sitting with him in her arms for an hour, singing to him every lullaby she could think of, he finally stopped crying. And it continued like that for the first week, she kept playing it by the wire. Sam and Becca did call to check on her, but Stephanie wasn’t ready for guests. She was too tired to remember to wear pants, but her postpartum bleeding was staining them anyway, so she just walked around in a nursing bra with a massive postpartum pad crammed into her underwear, making it practically a diaper. She was feeling a lot more like the baby than James.

 

His first week appointment went amazing. He had proper movement, reflex, focus, head lift, and he was healing from the post-delivery procedures. He was also as starving as she was, it seemed, nursing and nursing. And so Stephanie had to eat and eat to keep up with him. He wasn’t colicky like she was, it seemed. She gave him baths regularly, and when she finally got him to sleep, threw herself in the shower to rinse off the stress she had been working up. When Sam came over, Stephanie cried because she realized she forgot that Sam was coming over. Sam assured her it was fine, but Stephanie was overwhelmed, exhausted, guilty, nervous, panicked, and she had never missed Bucky Barnes more in her entire life.

 

When Becca Barnes-Proctor came over, she snapped at Stephanie to sit up straight or else she’d hurt her post-labor back and instantly descended on her nephew, cooing and complimenting him. James was his father’s son. He had the same steel blue eyes, dark hair, and dimpled chin. “He’s beautiful,” Becca told Stephanie, sinking into the chair in the nursery to watch him flail and make weird sounds at the musical mobile above his crib. “If Bucky were here-”

 

“I’d be getting more sleep” Stephanie joked.

 

“He would be obsessed,” Becca said.

 

Stephanie nearly started sobbing again, because she could see it. Bucky and James, skin-to-skin, him singing some song to his son, staring at him with the expression of absolute devotion that Stephanie knew well. She looked over at the crib where James lay, and she saw her husband standing over their son. She saw him with his dark hair over his forehead, his steel-blue eyes crinkled as he beamed down, the light pouring from his face. He looked up at her and reached down to James, stroking his face.

 

“He’s perfect,” Bucky said. “Stephanie, look what we made, he’s absolutely perfect.” Stephanie smiled and then let out a sob. The image faded. Bucky was a frozen corpse at the bottom of a ravine. And his son was a screaming bundle in Brooklyn. And it wasn’t fair. James should know his father. Bucky should know his son. It was all a mess. It was all a tragedy.

 

“He’s watching,” Becca said. “He’s there, he’s proud, you know he is,” Becca said.

 

Stephanie nodded. She found herself holding onto the rings that hung around her neck.

 

“Joanna and Hannah promised to come,” Becca said. “But I told them you need more time.”

 

“Thank you,” Stephanie said.

 

“Parenthood is hard,” Becca nodded. “That’s why I had Rachel and John and declared it that. She’s the masochist who had four children and left me to be the doting grandmother.”

 

“I’d have a dozen if it meant I had him back,” Stephanie said.

 

“And I’d let you,” Becca agreed. Stephanie laughed. “I want this child to bring you the happiness you deserve, Stephanie. Mazel Tov.”

 

Stephanie smiled.

 

* * *

 

 

James would grab her clothes, her hair, and anything that was in reach. She played with him, gave him stuffed toys to squeeze, and made sure that he spent time on his belly so he could practice lifting his head. She also managed to get him to start to fit a routine. Baths before night put him to bed, and he was getting closer and closer to sleeping through the night. He still had to nap every few hours, and he ate about twelve times a day, so it wasn’t like things were getting easier, but they were getting more predictable. Stephanie was oblivious to the month of February once she had James, because everything she did was take care of him. Near the end of the month, she started venturing out to the local supermarket with him in the stroller. If she thought she had gotten unwanted attention when she was heavily pregnant, she was swarmed with women when she had a stroller. They cooed and chirped and complimented her son, and after the fear for her life and his safety faded, she could agree with them that James was the most handsome little baby boy.

 

His one-month check up said he was definitely slightly ahead of the average development projections, but not to the point where she had to worry about him walking or talking for many months at least. His blubbing and gooing could keep him and Stephanie having a conversation for a good while, him sitting in a rocking bassinet while she stretched out next to him, talking about his toes and his nose and the birds and the sky. James’ smiles brought tears to her eyes, and his loud laughs were infectious.

 

It was an absolutely boring Thursday when she saw Bucky for the last time. She was trying to find some peace when the baby monitor chirped with his wails.

 

“I can get that,” Bucky said beside her on the couch.

 

“You’re dead,” Stephanie said. That was the first time she admitted it. She stood up and walked over to the nursery.

 

When she lay in bed that night, her eyes closed but part of her mind constantly alert in case James cried, she knew that she was alone in bed. After that night, she didn’t see him again. She could remember him. She dreamed about him. But when her eyes were open, the only place she saw Bucky was in their son.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that you all enjoyed!
> 
> As always, your feedback is appreciated, and comments are beloved! Interacting with you is my favorite part of publishing these fics. If there's a question you have about this universe or Stephanie that I couldn't address in the narrative, I would love to talk about it with you in the comments!
> 
> Come and talk to me at my Tumblr: aycdicdbmcu.tumblr.com
> 
> And subscribe to my series so you'll all be updated when I start posting The Avengers! And I highly recommend reading the rest of my series if you haven't already, so you have context when I publish that story after a brief hiatus (my finals).
> 
> Thank you all so much, until next time! :)


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